A heteronym is a word that is written
identically but has a different
pronunciation and meaning. In other
words, they are homographs that are not
homophones. Thus, row and row are
heteronyms, but mean and mean are not.
Heteronym pronunciation may vary in
vowel realisation, in stress pattern, or
in other ways:
The weather was beginning to affect his
affect.
A bass was painted on the head of the
bass drum.
They were too close to the door to close
it.
Don't desert me here in the desert!
Do you know what a buck does to does?
When shot at, the dove dove into the
bushes.
How can I intimate this to my most
intimate friend?
The insurance was invalid for the
invalid.
He could lead if he would get the lead
out.
After a number of injections my jaw got
number.
I did not object to the object.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He thought it was time to present the
present.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to
refuse more refuse.
There was a row among the oarsmen about
how to row.
I seconded the motion that the official
be seconded to another department.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into
the sewer.
To help with planting, the farmer taught
his sow to sow.
I had to subject the subject to a series
of tests.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I
shed a tear.
The wind was too strong to wind the
sail.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
Most heteronyms are doubles. Triple
heteronyms are extremely rare; two
examples, sin and mobile, are listed
below. Proper nouns can sometimes be
heteronyms. For example, the final
syllable of Oregon is pronounced like
the word in by residents of that state
in the United States, while in the name
of the village of Oregon in Wisconsin,
the final syllable is pronounced like
the word on. Other examples include
local pronunciations of Cairo, GA,
Versailles, KY, and Milan, TN. There are
also pairs which include both
initialisms and regular words, e.g., US
and us.
Heteronyms can also occur in
non-alphabetic languages. For example,
the Chinese character 行 can be
pronounced háng, meaning "profession",
or xíng, meaning "OK". In Japanese,
kanji often lead to heteronyms because
they can have different readings, either
borrowed from Chinese from some points
in history or assigned from potentially
multiple native Japanese words.
"Heterophone" literally just means
"different sound", and this term is
sometimes applied to words that are just
pronounced differently, irrespective of
their spelling. Such a definition would
obviously include virtually every pair
of words in the language, so
"heterophone" in this sense is normally
restricted to instances where there is
some particular reason to highlight the
different sound. For example, puns
normally involve homophones, but in the
case of heterophonic puns, the two words
sound different, and yet similar enough
for one to suggest the other.
Further examples
For a longer list, see
Wiktionary:Category:English heteronyms.
External links
List and analysis of English
homographs/heteronyms by John Higgins
The Home of the Heteronym, featuring
There's a Sewer in the Sewer
www.onetrickwords.com
The Heteronym Page
