homophone

     

A homophone is a wor that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or two and too. A short example of a homophone is the words "know" and "no". Note that they are pronounced the same but have different meanings. A homophone is a type of homonym, although sometimes homonym is used to refer only to homophones that have the same spelling but different meanings. The term may also be used to apply to units shorter than words, such as letters or groups of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.