Language · 2
What is the linguistic term for a word that is spelled and pronounced identically to another but has a completely different meaning and origin?
Answer
Homonym
A homonym is a word that shares both spelling and pronunciation with another word but differs in meaning and etymology — for example, 'bank' (financial institution) and 'bank' (river edge). This distinguishes it from homophones (same sound only) and homographs (same spelling only).
💡 Did you know?
The word 'cleave' is its own opposite: it means both to split apart and to cling together — a rare type of homonym called a contronym or auto-antonym.
Other options people guess
- Homophone
- Homograph
- Polyseme
Topics
- linguistics
- vocabulary
- word-types
- semantics
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