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 (with *) 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

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