50 Fun Facts About Homophones

Which military rank is pronounced exactly like the word for a single seed of corn?

Colonel sounds like kernel because English first took the word from French as 'coronnel', then respelled it the Italian way; the r-sound won out by about 1650.

Which kitchen ingredient shares both its sound and its origin with a word for a blossom?

Flour was simply spelled 'flower' until about 1830, because it meant the flower, or finest portion, of the ground grain.

In China, phone numbers containing fours are often avoided because 'four' sounds like which word?

Death and four differ only in tone in Mandarin, sǐ against sì, and the resulting dread of the number is common enough to have a name: tetraphobia.

Which chess piece's name sounds exactly like the word for the hours of darkness?

Knight once began with a spoken k: English speakers stopped pronouncing the k in 'kn' words during the 17th century, which left it identical to night.

Which five-letter word is pronounced exactly the same after its last four letters are removed?

Queue sounds exactly like its own first letter, Q. The word comes from an Old French word for 'tail' and still means a line of people waiting their turn.

Which sea creature's name sounds exactly like the body tissue that contracts to move a limb?

Mussel and muscle began as the same word: both come from the Latin musculus, which literally means 'little mouse'.

Which food's name sounds exactly like a word for a story told in regular instalments?

Cereal comes from Ceres, the ancient goddess of agriculture, so every bowl of cornflakes carries the name of a deity.

Which menu item sounds exactly like a word for a pointed wooden post driven into the ground?

Steak comes from the Old Norse steik, meaning meat roasted on a stick, so the cut is named for the way it was cooked.

Which number sounds exactly like the past tense of the verb meaning to have a meal?

Eight matches 'ate' for most speakers, though some British speakers pronounce ate to rhyme with 'bet', which spoils the pairing.

Which country's name, in English, sounds exactly like a word meaning uncomfortably cold?

Chile sounds like chilly in English, and like chili too, though the pepper's name comes from the Nahuatl word chīlli rather than from the country.

Which animal's name sounds exactly like a word meaning expensive or much loved?

Deer once covered any beast at all: in Old English the word dēor simply meant 'animal', and only later narrowed to the antlered kind.

Which animal's name sounds exactly like a word for a golf course laid out on coastal dunes?

Lynx sounds like links, which comes from a Scots word for sandy, rolling ground near the seashore.

Which animal's name sounds, for most English speakers, like a word describing a rough, croaky throat?

Horse and hoarse sound identical in most accents, a blend that linguists call the horse–hoarse merger; Scottish English still keeps the pair apart.

Which young bird's name sounds exactly like a word for a ring engraved with a personal seal?

Cygnet, a young swan, comes from the Latin cygnus, 'swan', while a signet was pressed into sealing wax to prove where a document came from.

Which word for a ship's landing place sounds, in standard British English, like a tool that opens locks?

Quay is pronounced 'key' in British English, though American speakers also say it to rhyme with 'day' or 'sway'.

Which letter of the alphabet sounds exactly like a word for a large body of salt water?

C sounds exactly like sea and see, so texters use the letter to stand in for the word; a word spelled out with letter names this way is called a gramogram.

Which colour's name sounds exactly like the past tense of the verb describing what wind does?

Blue and blew once looked alike as well: in Middle English the colour was written 'blew' or 'blewe'.

Which fruit's name sounds exactly like a word for the steady flow of a river?

Currant is a worn-down form of Corinth: the tiny dried grapes were known in French as 'raisins de Corinthe', grapes of Corinth.

Which crop's name sounds exactly like a word for a puzzling network of paths and hedges?

Maize reached English through the Spanish maíz, which was borrowed from the Taíno language of the Caribbean.

Which part of the body sounds exactly like a word describing warships and fleets?

Navel names the belly button, while naval comes from the Latin navalis and simply means 'of or relating to ships'.

Which spelling means a maker or builder, and survives in the job title of someone who crafts plays?

Wright comes from the Old English wyrhta, 'worker', and is related to the word 'work'; a wheelwright made wheels and a cartwright made carts.

Which spelling names the unit of weight for diamonds, equal to 200 milligrams?

Carat goes back to the Greek word for a carob seed, because the small seeds were long used as weights for jewellery.

Which spelling is correct for the verb meaning to stir up someone's curiosity or interest?

Pique is the spelling that stirs interest, yet writers often swap in peak or peek, and the verb is now rare outside that one set phrase.

Which spelling names the thin board on which a painter lays out and mixes colours?

Palette is the painter's board, a palate is the roof of the mouth, and a pallet is the portable platform that a forklift moves around.

Which spelling names a person in line to inherit a title, a throne or a fortune?

Heir has a silent h, so it sounds exactly like air and like ere, an old poetic word meaning 'before'.

Which spelling names the rooftop pointer that swings to show wind direction, often shaped like a cockerel?

Vane is the wind pointer; a ninth-century pope is said to have ordered a rooster onto every church steeple, which helps explain why so many are cockerels.

Which spelling is the warning golfers shout when a ball is flying toward other players?

Fore is golf's warning cry; as an ordinary word it means the front, especially the front part of a ship.

Which spelling names the period during which a king or queen sits on the throne?

Reign is the period a monarch rules, while a rein is the strap that controls a riding animal, which is why the phrase is 'free rein'.

Which spelling points to a place, as the opposite of 'here', in a sentence about where something is?

There points to a place, and it hides the word 'here' inside it, a handy way to tell it apart from 'their', which shows ownership.

Which sound-alike pair names the head of a school and a basic rule or belief?

Principal and principle are easy to mix up: the school head is the principal, while a principle is a fundamental law or guiding belief.

Which sound-alike pair means 'not moving' and 'paper, envelopes and other writing materials'?

Stationary and stationery share a root: a stationer was a bookseller whose shop stood at a fixed location, and the goods he sold became stationery.

Which sound-alike pair would describe a wild animal that has lost all of its fur?

Bare bear works only by sound: bare comes from the Old English bær, 'naked', and the animal from the unrelated Old English bera.

Which sound-alike pair means 'a device that slows a car' and 'to smash into pieces'?

Brake and break may be distant relatives: the origin of brake is uncertain, but it possibly comes from a Dutch or Low German word tied to the Germanic verb 'to break'.

Which capital city's name sounds exactly like a verb meaning to wander with no fixed route?

Rome sounds exactly like roam, but the verb has no proven tie to the city: it first appears in Middle English as 'romen', and its origin is uncertain.

Which nationality sounds exactly like a word for a restaurant bill or a warning in chess?

Czech sounds like check, and English took its spelling unchanged from Polish, which is why it opens with the unusual letter pair 'cz'.

Which word for a religious song of praise sounds exactly like a pronoun for a male person?

Hymn ends in a silent n; the word reached English from the Greek húmnos by way of the Latin hymnus.

Which group of singers has a name that sounds exactly like a word for 24 or 25 sheets of paper?

Choir was written 'quer' or 'quere' in Middle English; the modern spelling was influenced by 'chorus', yet the old sound survived to match quire.

Which musical instrument sounds exactly like a word for a sign that stands for something else?

Cymbal goes back to the Greek kúmbē, 'bowl', a fair description of the dished metal plate.

Which British comedy duo performed the 1976 hardware-shop sketch 'Four Candles', built on misheard requests?

The Two Ronnies sketch has a shopkeeper fetch candles when the customer wanted handles for garden forks; viewers voted it the pair's favourite sketch in 1999.

Which term names words spelled alike but pronounced differently, like 'lead' the metal and 'lead' the leash?

Heteronyms look identical on the page but change their sound with their meaning; a set of three such words is extremely rare in English.

Which term did linguist Geoffrey Pullum suggest in 2003 for a misheard word reshaped to make sense?

Eggcorn is itself an example: the label came from a woman who wrote 'egg corn' for acorn, a slip discussed on the Language Log website.

How is the surname of Samuel Pepys, the London diarist who witnessed the Great Fire, pronounced?

Peeps is the accepted pronunciation of Pepys, who kept his diary for almost a decade from 1660, writing in shorthand, a sign that he did not expect his contemporaries to read it.

A Chinese poem about a poet who eats lions, published by linguist Yuen Ren Chao, repeats which single syllable?

Shi is the sound of every character in the poem, with only the tones differing, so in Mandarin it is incomprehensible when read aloud.

Fish is served at Chinese New Year because the Mandarin word for fish sounds the same as which word?

Surplus and fish are both yú in Mandarin, so the dish is often left partly uneaten and kept overnight, a wish for plenty left over every year.

Which formal term from rhetoric names the pun, wordplay that often relies on similar-sounding words?

Paronomasia is the formal term for punning, and it thrives in titles, names and advertising slogans because it grabs attention and sticks in the memory.

Which term did Gyles Brandreth propose in 1980 for same-sounding phrases that divide into different words?

Oronym was proposed in Brandreth's book The Joy of Lex, although linguists already used the same word for the name of a mountain or hill.

Which kind of puzzle combines pictures with letters so that their sounds spell out words or phrases?

Rebus puzzles lean on sound-alikes: a drawing of a bumblebee beside the letter n, for instance, can stand for the word 'been'.

Which word for a misheard lyric was coined in 1954 by an American writer recalling a Scottish ballad?

Mondegreen comes from a 1954 Harper's Magazine essay: as a girl, its author heard a ballad line about a slain earl as the name of a 'Lady Mondegreen'.

Which nautical unit sounds exactly like the common word that makes a sentence negative?

Knot comes from the knotted log-line that sailors let run out behind a ship, counting the knots that passed through their hands in a set time.

Which spelling names a smell, especially a pleasant one such as a perfume or a rose's fragrance?

Scent was spelled 'sent' in Middle English; the extra silent letter only appeared in the 17th century, possibly copying words such as ascent and science.