Homophones
are words that have exactly the same sound (pronunciation)
but different meanings and (usually) spelling.
For
example, the following two words have the same sound,
but different meanings and spelling:
hour
our
In
the next example, the two words have the same sound
and spelling, but different meanings:
bear (the animal)
bear (to carry)
Usually
homophones are in groups of two (our, hour), but very
occasionally they can be in groups of three (to, too,
two) or even four. If we take our "bear" example,
we can add another word to the group"
bare
(naked)
bear (the animal)
bear (to tolerate)
"Our
bear cannot bear to be bare at any hour."
The
following list of 70 groups of homophones contains only
the most common homophones, using relatively well-known
words. These are headwords only. No inflections (such
as third person singular "s" or noun plurals)
are included.
