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What Is A Homograph?

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Will Martin answered
The word homograph drives from two Greek words meaning "same" and "writing." Homographs are pairs or groups of words which have the same spelling, but a different pronunciation and, usually, meaning.

Some examples of homographs are:

read - the present tense is pronounced REED, the past is RED.

bow - the main part of a bow tie is pronounced BO, while a polite greeting where you bend forward (eg in Japan) is pronounced BOW to rhyme with now.)

refuse - the verb, meaning "to say no" is pronounced reFUSE, while the noun, meaning rubbish or garbage, is REF-use.

There are lots of other examples - in fact homographs are so common that they are often used as the basis of verbal jokes.

A homograph shouldn't be confused with a homophone (eg see/ sea or I/ eye) where two words have the same sound but different spelling and meaning, or a homonym, where they have identical pelling and sound, but different meanings (eg bank.)

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