Language · 2
What term describes a word that is spelled and pronounced the same as another but has a completely unrelated meaning, such as 'bank' (financial) and 'bank' (riverbank)?
Answer
Homonym
A homonym is a word that shares both spelling and pronunciation with another word but has an entirely different, unrelated origin and meaning. 'Bank' (financial institution) and 'bank' (edge of a river) are classic examples. Homophones share only sound, homographs share only spelling, and polysemes share a word form with related meanings.
💡 Did you know?
English has over 6,000 homonym pairs — more than most languages — largely because centuries of borrowing from French, Norse, and Latin created word collisions by accident.
Other options people guess
- Homophone
- Homograph
- Polyseme
Topics
- linguistics
- vocabulary
- english
- semantics
Know your language trivia?
Play a free Language quiz and see how many you get right — no signup needed to start.
More Language facts
Language
What is the linguistic term for a word that is spelled and pronounced identically to another but has a completely different meaning and origin?
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.
Language
What is the linguistic term for a word or phrase that a society uses as a milder substitute for something considered harsh or taboo?
The word 'euphemism' comes from the Greek 'euphemismos,' meaning 'to speak with good words' — the ancient Greeks used it in religious contexts to avoid uttering words considered unlucky or profane.
Language
What is the term for a word that has the same spelling and pronunciation as another but a completely different meaning and origin?
The word 'set' holds the record for the most definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary, with over 430 — making it one of the most extreme examples of homonymy and polysemy combined.
Language
What made Oxford Dictionaries' 2015 Word of the Year announcement historically unprecedented?
Oxford Dictionary's 2015 'Word of the Year' was 😂 (face with tears of joy)—the first time a pictograph, not a word, won globally.
Language
Which language family is known for using tonal distinctions to differentiate word meanings, resulting in fewer syllables transmitted per second in conversation?
Conversational speed varies by language: tonal languages like Mandarin transmit fewer syllables per second than faster Romance languages like Spanish.
Language
Which language, despite having no native speakers, is still spoken daily by Catholic priests during liturgy in Vatican City?
Latin never actually died—Catholic priests still speak it daily in liturgy, keeping a 2,000-year-old language functionally alive in Vatican City.