Proper Pronunciation Guide

homonyms

[hɑ mə nɪmz]

Pronounce the first letter “o” as
/ɑ/—like the first vowel in the word “father”—and stress it.
Pronounce the second letter “o” as the weak schwa vowel
/ə/.

	Are these two words homonyms or homophones?
	Why aren't homonyms simply the same word with different meanings?

(noun, plural) Two words that are both spelled alike and pronounced alike but which have different meanings, such as “bear,” the animal, and “bear,” meaning to carry a heavy load either physically—including bearing a child—or psychologically, such as finding it difficult to bear grief. Literally, the “same name,” from Latin and Greek: homo (the same) and nym (name).

The answer posed by the second practice sentence is interesting. For those interested in the origins of language, each of the two different meanings for “bear” evolved differently from Old English words meaning in the first instance “the brown one” and in the second instance, even going back to Greek, “to carry.”
The term “homophones” refers to two or more words that have different spellings and different meanings but which have the same pronunciation (literally the “same sound”), such as “bear” and “bare” (uncovered).
The term “homographs”, on the other hand, refers to two words that are spelled, or written (graph), the same but which have different pronunciations and meanings, such as “wind,” meaning either air movement or to turn something around a point, such as winding an alarm clock.