A homophone is a word that shares the same pronunciation as another word while possessing a distinct meaning and typically a different etymology. Parameters: (1) at least two words must share phonetic form in a given dialect, (2) the words must be distinguishable by meaning, (3) orthographic form may or may not differ. Persists through language use, dictionaries, grammatical tradition, and linguistic pedagogy. [formal: homophonus | substrate: mind | horizon: centuries | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.1]
Accepted ontology entry
homophone
A homophone is a word that shares the same pronunciation as another word while possessing a distinct meaning and typically a different etymology. Parameters: (1) at least two words must share phonetic form in a given dialect, (2) the words…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made linguistic construct: a word that shares the same pronunciation as another word while having a distinct meaning and usually a different origin. Built to persist through language, dictionaries, and linguistic classification.
Names and aliases
- homophoneen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cms7cknml0169a34c7mvf0dp6INSTANCE_OF →
A homophone is a specific kind of homonym: a word that sounds the same as another word but differs in meaning. Homophones share phonetic identity while homonyms is the broader set of words sharing sound (and possibly spelling). Direction specific→general per Law 9.
- cms5mmykm020ki9iq2b4fbw6jINSTANCE_OF →
A homophone is a specific kind of word — one that sounds like another word but has different meaning. Per Law 9: a competent speaker would call a homophone 'a word.' The entry's accepted definition confirms this sense.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Aug 6, 2026, 8:25 AM UTC
- Content hash
- 7e8af04156817878de1e76c11b8423dcb9c1a85dfda41bc1b845594e70ad835d