homophone

A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A homophone may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, as in rain, reign, and rein. The term homophone may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, for example a phrase, letter, or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter, or group of letters. Any unit with this property is said to be homophonous ().
Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms, e.g. the word read, as in "He is well read" (he is very learned) vs. the sentence "I read that book" (I have finished reading that book).Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs, e.g. to, too, and two.

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