Questions tagged [homophones]
Homophones are words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings. They aren't necessarily spelled the same.
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Meaning of gaff/gaffe
In the video at 0.41 she uses the phrase “gaff/ gaffe themselves”. The dictionary lists many meanings, pronunciation is same for both the words and I am mentioning those I feel could be of relevance....
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Are rescind and resend homophones?
Rescind and resend are homophones and easily confused words.
The following sentence uses both words correctly:
Cilla was beside herself with anxiety: had Tyler rescinded his interest taking her to the ...
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Did similar-sounding words like wet/weight/wait come to existence before the invention of writing? [closed]
I am not an expert in languages and this is my first question here...
To my understanding, most of the languages were spoken before writing was discovered/evolved. What would cause a language to have ...
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Is there a documented merger or split responsible for whether or not people treat lair and layer as homophones, and if so, what is it called?
Discovered a weird bit of pronunciation distinction in friends today, between three words:
lair (as in home to monster)
layer (as in levels of a cake)
layer (as in "one who lays things down"...
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Pronunciation of "there, their and they're"
I know that the words there, their, and they're are homophones, but I can't help but think that their has a slight /j/ between /e/ and /r/ (/ðer/).
This thought didn't just come to me out of nowhere- ...
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Is there a difference between the pronunciation of long-ass and long gas?
I know that final -⟨ng⟩ is pronounced /ŋ/ (in most dialects), but I'm wondering what happens when the intensifier "ass" comes after the /ŋ/ sound of "long". Does the pronunciation ...
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Is/Was there ever a relationship between "impugn" and "impune"? [closed]
I am curious if there is a relationship between the words "impune" (to make immune/protect) and "impugn" (to attack/call into question).
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What do you call someone who is not materialistic? [duplicate]
By not materialistic I mean someone who just doesn't have interest in material things for the sake of the value it would give them from their possession, but rather acquires them for their ...
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What is the history behind “raze” and “raise” (two words that sound the same but mean nearly opposite things)? [closed]
How did the English language come to have two words, “raze” and “raise” that mean practically opposite things, but sound the same?
Merriam Webster definitions
Raze: to destroy to the ground
Raise: to ...
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Words spelled the same way they are pronounced
Is there a term for words that are spelled the same way they are pronounced? If so, is there a list of them somewhere?
For example, I have thought of:
"a" spelled A pronounced "A"
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Why g in gel sounds as j
Gel and jel are homophones,
but why g sounds as j in that case (and similar words as gelatin)?
Is it related to word origin?
Borrowed from French gélatine (“jelly, gel”), from Italian gelatina (“...
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catalog of homophones with high count of meanings
From Wikipedia:
There are sites, for example, this archived page, which have lists of homonyms or rather homophones and even 'multinyms' which have as many as seven spellings.
In English, there ...
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Good practise or good practice? [duplicate]
I believe the noun is practice and the verb is practise, as demonstrated in;
The doctor with a private practice practises privately
However, if I wanted to say:
It is good practi(s/c)e to colour-...
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Is English simplifying its phonology? Or are there examples of new linguistic distinctions being created?
One example of a linguistic distinction being lost in English is the merger of the th merging into f in the British accent (Telegraph Article). Another example of the th sound being lost is in the ...
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Are "one" and "won" homophones in Australian English?
My friend and I are both native speakers of Australian English.
He thinks "one" and "won" sound different and feels "a one-liner" sounds wrong and should be "an one-liner". He does think the two ...
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