Etymology

From < + <

Noun

1. A word that is spelled the same as another but has a different meaning and usually a different etymology.

Usage notes

Homographs are a kind of in the loose sense of that term, i.e. a word that is either a (same sound) or a (same spelling). (The strict sense of homonym is a word that both sounds and is spelled the same as another word.) Specifically, homographs must have the same spelling, though they usually have different meanings and may be pronounced differently.

• The verb and the noun are homographs with the same pronunciation and different etymological origins.
• The verb and the adjective are homographs with different pronunciations but close etymological origins. Such homographs are also heteronyms.
• The verb and the noun are not homographs since they have different spellings.