The aim of this article is to discuss, with examples, the difference between homonyms, homophones, homographs, hyponyms, hypernyms, antonyms and synonyms. Before we proceed, note that these words are discussed under "sense relation" in Linguistics. Sense relation is the relationship that a word holds with another word.
Homonyms are words that
have the same spelling and sound, but a number of different meanings.
Examples
i. Bank (as a financial
institution) and the Bank (of a river).
ii. Bark (for a dog) and
the Bark (of a tree).
iii. Bear (to carry) and
Bear (an animal).
iv. Lead (to conduct) and
Lead (metal).
v. Saw (the past form of
"see") and Saw (as a power tool for cutting wood) etc.
2. Homophones
"Homo" means
"same" whereas "phone" means "sound". Therefore,
homophones are words that have the same sound but differ in meaning and
spelling.
Examples
i. To, too and two.
ii. Blew (past
form of blow) and blue (colour).
iii. Son and sun.
iv. See and sea.
v. Weather and whether.
vi. Bare (naked
or uncovered) and bear (animal) etc.
3. Homographs
Homographs are words that
have the same spelling but differ meaning and sometimes pronunciation.
Examples
i. Present (to
introduce formally) and present (a gift).
ii. Refuse (garbage)
and refuse (to decline a request).
4. Hyponym vs
Hypernym
A hyponym is a word whose
meaning is included in the meaning of another more general word. In other
words, it is the relationship between two words in which the meaning
of one word includes the meaning of the other word.
Examples
i. Spoon is a hyponym of
cutlery. Cutlery is a more general word which comprises spoon, fork and knife.
ii. Red, blue and yellow
are the hyponyms of colour.
iii. Bus is a hyponym of
vehicle.
iv. Dog is a hyponym of
animal.
The general word is
called hypernym. A hypernym is a word whose meaning includes the
meaning of a more specific word.
Examples
i. Animal is the hypernym of
dog.
ii. Cutlery is the
hypernym of spoon, knife and fork.
5. Synonym
Synonym is a word or
phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase in the
same language; for example, same is a synonym of similar.
6. Antonym
An antonym is a word that
expresses a meaning that is opposite to the meaning of another word; for
example, come is an antonym of go.
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