Difference between homonyms and paronyms

There are many pairs or groups of words that are written or pronounced in very similar ways or even the same, but they have very different meanings . In this way, it may be homonymous or parsimonious words, depending on the circumstances of writing and pronunciation that are given. We know that this can generate some doubts, so we explain in more detail what is the difference between homonyms and paronyms.

What are homonyms?

The homonymous or homonymous words are those that are written or pronounced the same, but have different meanings . It is not necessary that these two conditions are met at the same time, so the homonymy includes two possible cases:

• Words that are written and pronounced exactly the same, but have different meanings: homographs or homophobic words .
• Words that are written differently, but are pronounced the same and have different meanings: homophones or homophones.

Examples:

• cat / cat : they are homógrafas by the fact of writing and pronouncing the same, but having different meanings
• vote / bounce : they are homophones because they sound the same but they are written differently.

You can expand this information in our article on differences between homonyms, homographs and homophones.

What are the paronyms?

Paronym terms are words between which establishes a relation of similarity by etymology or are pronounced in a very similar way, so they can generate doubts and are commonly confused with each other.

Examples:

• accessible / affordable
• session / section
• answer / context

In this way, the main difference between homonyms and paronyms is that the words are never written and / or pronounced the same, but in a similar way.