Heterophone

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This article is about the linguistic meaning. For the musical meaning, see Heterophony.

In linguistics, heterophones are words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciations and meanings, such as desert (abandon) and desert (arid region). Heterophones are a type of homonym, and are also called heteronyms. The state of being a heterophone is called heterophony. Opposite to heterophones are homophones: words that sound exactly the same (and may or may not have different spellings).

"Heterophone" literally just means "different sound", and the 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 (or imperfect) puns, the two words sound different, and yet similar enough for one to suggest the other (for example, mouth and mouse).

Some examples are:

1. Do you know what a buck does to does?
2. With every number I read, my mind gets number and number.