What are the differences between homophones, homonyms and homographs?

Question

In writing, it is very important that a student understands the difference between homophones, homonyms and homographs. It is very easy to confuse the 3 with each other which may cause the student to use the wrong form or spelling of the word in their sentence.

Answer 1

Homophones, homographs and homonyms are a very important part of the English Language. Many words in the English Language sound the same but have different meanings or sound the same but have different spellings. It is very important to know which form of the word (both spelling and definition) when writing sentences or answering questions.

Here are the differences between the three:

1. Homophone: a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning and/or spelling (examples: "bear/bare" or "one/won")
2. Homographs: words that have the same spelling but different meanings whether they are pronounced the same or not (examples: "bat/bat" or "park/park")
3. Homonyms: can be reffered to as both a homophone (sounding the same) and a homograph (spelled the same) (examples: "right/right" or "date/date")