What is a homophone?

A homophone is a

• group of two or more letters representing the same speech sound, or
• homonym (sense 1).

Here are some examples of homophones in English listed according to the senses above:

• Letters with the same speech sound:

  • c in city
  • s in song

• Homonyms:

  • two
  • too

Neufeldt 1991 647

Context for this page:

• Concept module: homophone
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): H
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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