Standard Lemma guide

homophone

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

  • UK: /ˈhɒməfəʊn/
  • US: /ˈhɑməfoʊn/
  • US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • Australian: /ˈhɔməfəʉn/
  • South-Asia: /homofon/
  • Canada: [ˈhɒ(ː)məfoːn]
  • CMU ARPABET: HH OW1 M OW0 F OW2 N Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or meaning or origin.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, sciences, semantics

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: homonym, soundalike

2

noun

Meaning 2

A letter or group of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

two words are homophones if they are pronounced the same way but differ in meaning or spelling or both (e.g. bare and bear)

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: homonym

History

Etymology

From French homophone; equivalent to homo- (“same”) + -phone (“sound”).

Across languages

Translations

55 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Afrikaans: homofoon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Arabic: لَفْظَة مُتَجَانِسَة (lafẓa mutajānisa) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Armenian: նույնահնչյուն բառ (nuynahnčʻyun baṙ) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Bulgarian: омофо́н (omofón) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Catalan: homòfon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Chinese Mandarin: 同音詞 /同音词 (tóngyīncí) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Chinese Mandarin: 同音字 (tóngyīnzì) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Czech: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Czech: homofonum — words with the same pronunciation
  • Danish: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Dutch: homofoon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Esperanto: homofono — words with the same pronunciation
  • Estonian: homofoon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Finnish: homofoni — words with the same pronunciation
  • French: homophone — words with the same pronunciation
  • Friulian: omofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Georgian: ომოფონი (omoponi) — words with the same pronunciation
  • German: Homophon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Greek: ομόφωνος (omófonos) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Hindi: समध्वनि (samdhvani) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Hungarian: homofon (not infrequently spelled homofón) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Icelandic: samhljóma orð — words with the same pronunciation
  • Ido: homofono — words with the same pronunciation
  • Indonesian: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Irish: homafón — words with the same pronunciation
  • Irish: téarma comhfhuaimneach — words with the same pronunciation
  • Italian: omofono — words with the same pronunciation
  • Japanese: 同音語 (dōongo) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Kashmiri: ہَم آوٲزؠ (ham āvạ̄z') — words with the same pronunciation
  • Kazakh: омофон (omofon) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Khmer: សូរដូច (soo dooc) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Khmer: កល្បសព្ទ (kɑlpa’sap) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Korean: 동음이의어 (dong'eumiuieo) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Northern Kurdish: hevdeng — words with the same pronunciation
  • Northern Kurdish: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Lithuanian: homofonas — words with the same pronunciation
  • Norwegian Bokmål: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Norwegian Nynorsk: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Polish: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Portuguese: homófono — words with the same pronunciation
  • Romanian: omofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Russian: омофо́н (omofón) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Serbo-Croatian: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Serbo-Croatian: istozvučnica — words with the same pronunciation
  • Slovene: enakoglasnica — words with the same pronunciation
  • Slovene: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Spanish: homófono — words with the same pronunciation
  • Spanish: homófona — words with the same pronunciation
  • Swedish: homofon — words with the same pronunciation
  • Thai: คําพ้องเสียง (kam-pɔ́ɔng-sǐiang) — words with the same pronunciation
  • Turkish: sesteş kelime — words with the same pronunciation
  • Turkish: sesteş — words with the same pronunciation
  • Vietnamese: từ đồng âm — words with the same pronunciation
  • Welsh: cyfunsain — words with the same pronunciation
  • Welsh: homoffon — words with the same pronunciation
Real reading context

homophone in complete knowledge articles