A Homophone is, of course, a word that has an identical pronunciation to another word but differs in meaning.

Certainly not an English-only concept, Homophones can be found across many (most?) other languages. In German, I know of many (more perhaps), and can even think of several in Spanish.

In English, the pronunciation can vary slightly depending upon region and dialect. I’ve marked the ones that, for me, tend to have a subtly different pronunciation:

• accept, except*
• affect, effect*
• allowed, aloud
• ant, aunt*
• ate, eight
• bare, bear
• bean, been
• blue, blew
• break, brake
• cell, sell, sale*
• cereal, serial
• cite, site
• compliment, complement
• die, dye
• doe, dough
• fair, fare
• flour, flower
• foreward, forward
• four, for, 4
• great, grate
• heal, heel
• hear, here
• hour, our
• idle, idol*
• it’s, its
• knight, night
• knot, not, naught
• poor, pour
• right, write
• scent, cent
• sea, see
• sole, soul
• son, sun
• steal, steel
• stele, stela
• tale, tail
• then, than*
• they’re, there, their
• to, too, two, 2
• whether, weather
• you’re, your*
• you, u