Homophone vs Polysemy - What's the difference?
homophone | polysemy |
A word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or'' meaning ''or origin, for example: carat, caret, carrot, and karat.http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophonehttp://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/homophone?view=uk
A letter or group of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.
(semantics) The ability of words, signs and symbols to have multiple meanings.
As nouns the difference between homophone and polysemy
is that homophone is a word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in spelling or'' meaning ''or origin, for example: carat, caret, carrot, and karathttp://wwwmerriam-webstercom/dictionary/homophonehttp://wwwaskoxfordcom/concise_oed/homophone?view=uk while polysemy is (semantics) the ability of words, signs and symbols to have multiple meanings.homophone
English
(wikipedia homophone)Noun
(en noun)Usage notes
A homophone is a type of homonym in the loose sense of that term (a word which sounds or'' is spelled the same as another). (The strict sense of ''homonym is a word that both sounds and is spelled the same as another word.) A homograph is a word with the same spelling as another but a completely unrelated meaning. Homographs are not necessarily homophones.References
See also
(en) * ----polysemy
English
(wikipedia polysemy)Noun
(-)- [...] polysemy , which is the greedy habit some words have of taking more than one meaning for themselves. ,
speech at TED
.