Reading & WritingGrade 2nd· What Are Homophones?

What Are Homophones?

Homophones are words that sound the SAME but have different meanings and spellings

Learning Objective

Students will learn what homophones are and how words that sound the same can mean different things.

Homophones are words that sound the SAME but have different meanings and spellings
Examples: flour/flower, sea/see, knight/night, bare/bear
Homophones make English tricky but also really fun
Some homophones are spelled the same too (like bat/bat) — those are homonyms
Word play with homophones makes great jokes and riddles

Homophone: Words that sound the same but mean different things; "Sea and see are homophones."
Spelling: The order of letters in a word; "Flour and flower have different spellings."
Meaning: What a word stands for; "Bear and bare have different meanings."
Word play: Making jokes with words; "Homophones are great for word play."

1 / 5

Which of these is TRUE?

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and/or spellings
Source: Oxford English Dictionary
Examples: flour/flower, sea/see, knight/night, bare/bear, tail/tale
Source: OED
There are over 7,000 homophone pairs in English
Source: Homophone.com database
Homonyms are a subset — words that sound AND spell the same but mean different things (e.g., bat/bat)
Source: Linguistics textbooks
Homophones are a major source of word play, puns, and riddles in English
Source: Journal of Humor Research
Common confusion: there/their/they're, your/you're, to/too/two
Source: Common Core ELA standards

Watch next