Words & WritingGreek → English
Homonym
/ˈhɑːmənɪm/noun
A word spelled or sounded like another but carrying a different meaning.
The Greek roots
ὁμός
homós
same, shared
ὄνυμα
ónyma
name
Literally: “same name”
The story of the word
Aristotle opens the Categories with ὁμώνυμα: things that share a name but not a definition, his example being a living animal and a painted one. Logic used the term long before grammar did, and English borrowed it through Latin in the seventeenth century. Lexicographers still disagree about whether a river bank and a savings bank are one homonym or two separate words.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
synonymantonymanonymoushomogeneous
In a sentence
Bass the fish and bass the voice are homonyms in spelling only.
Half the puns in the book depend on a single homonym.