homograph

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A homograph (from the Greek: ὁμός, homós, "same" and γράφω, gráphō, "write") is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations (in which case the words are also heteronyms) or they may not (in which case the words are also both homophones and homonyms^[1]).

Examples:

(1)

shift n. (a change)
shift n. (a period at work)
shift v. (to move quickly)

In (1) all three words are identical in spelling and pronunciation (i.e. they are also homophones), but differ in meaning and function. These are commonly described as different senses of the same word, but if a word is regarded as a unique idea separate from its orthography and pronunciation then they are two different words.

(2)

read (present tense)
read (past tense)

(2) is an example of two words spelt identically but pronounced differently. Here confusion is not possible in spoken language.

Homograph disambiguation is critically important in speech synthesis, natural language processing and other fields.

In typography, "homograph" is sometimes used as a synomym for homoglyph.

More examples

Notes

1. ^ According to the definition of homonyms as words with the same spelling and pronunciation; however, some sources define homonyms as words with the same spelling or pronunciation, in which case all homographs are also homonyms.

See also

• Polysemy
• Homography, a concept in geometry. A homography matrix is sometimes known as a homograph.

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