Homonyms, Homophones, and Homographs

The words homonym, homophone, and homograph are grammatical terms that are easy to confuse with one another because their meanings are all closely related, so let’s go through each one of them and see what the differences are.

• A homograph is a word that has the same spelling as another word but has a different sound and a different meaning.

Examples:

*lead (to go in front of) / lead (a metal)
*wind (to follow a course that is not straight) / wind (a gust of air)
*bass (low, deep sound) / bass (a type of fish)

• A homophone is a word that has the same sound as another word but is spelled differently and has a different meaning.

Examples:

to / two / too
there / their / they're
pray / prey

•  A homonym is one of a group of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings, whether spelled the same or not.

Examples:

A further example of a homonym, which is both a homophone and a homograph, is fluke. Fluke can mean:

1. A fish, and a flatworm.
2. The end parts of an anchor.
3. The fins on a whale's tail.
4. A stroke of luck.

 These meanings represent at least three etymologically separate lexemes, but share the one form, fluke. Similarly, a river bank, a savings bank, a bank of switches, and a bank shot in pool share a common spelling and pronunciation, but differ in meaning.

The words bow and bough are examples where there are two meanings associated with a single pronunciation and spelling (the weapon and the knot); two meanings with two different pronunciations (the knot and the act of bending at the waist), and two distinct meanings sharing the same sound but different spellings (bow, the act of bending at the waist, and bough, the branch of a tree). 

In addition, it has several related but distinct meanings: a bent line is sometimes called a 'bowed' line, reflecting its similarity to the weapon. Even according to the most restrictive definitions, various pairs of sounds and meanings of bow, Bow and bough are homonyms, homographs, homophones, heteronyms, heterographs, capitonyms and are polysemous.