Definition of Homonym in English

As a homonymwords are understood that being equal in their form has different meanings, for example: the term sail can be used to refer to a ship or wax, it all depends on the context in which it will be used.

The word homonym is of Greek origin “homonyms” composed of “homo” which means “equal, like” and “onoma” expresses “name“.

The homonymous words are divided into: homonyms homonyms and homophones homonyms.

The homographs homonyms are distinguished by being words with the same spelling and pronunciation but different meanings, for example: emery polishing tool and lime fruit.

The homophones, homonyms are words spoken or sound alike but have different scripts. For example, the word one hundred corresponding to the number 100 and, also to indicate the two lateral parts of the head between the forehead, the ear and the cheek.

On the other hand, there is dialectal homophony, it arises in some regions of Spain and Latin American countries, and is caused by the lack of attention in spelling, usually with the words that bear the letters “s” or “z”.

In this sense, it can be seen that words that are paronic become homophones. An example is with the word “hunting” or “house”, in some places in Spain the pronunciation of “hunting” is used to indicate hunting or house and, like these examples there are others, among these “dipper” or “case” , etc.

In homonymy, there are different meanings for the same signifier. These are different signifiers due to the etymology of the words, that is, their origin.

For example, llama, is a ruminant animal native to South America, comes from Quechua llama and, it can also be a gaseous mass in combustion since it comes from the Latin “flamma”.

On the other hand, the word homonym can be used to refer to a person or thing that has the same name as another.

In this sense, it is what is known as tocaya, that is, they have the same name. for example: “the film is based on the 50-shadow Gray’s homonymous novel”, “my friend Isabel and my cousin Isabel are homonymous since they share the same name, you can also say that they are namesakes”.

Homonymous and Paronym

Paronimas are similar words in the sound but they are written differently and present different meanings. In this case, the following words are presented: quiet – staff, slab – pottery, provide – provide, and so on.

Homonyms and polysemy

Polysemy occurs when a signifier corresponds to several meanings. In this case, the difference between polysemy and homonym is that while the words have different etymological origin the same does not happen with the words polysemy, they all have the same etymological origin.