A DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH HOMOPHONES

The present dictionary is meant for all students of English in any part of the world where the language is spoken. It is intended as a valuable tool for pupils in schools, or university students interested in language and linguistics. It could also serve as a quick reference for editors and writers, as a supplement to other dictionaries for anyone who needs to look up a new word. Homophones are words which are pronounced alike, but differ in spelling and meaning. The list of homophones has been compiled from the Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, but other dictionaries have also been used (they are all on the bibliography list). The pronunciation of the words given in the OED was checked with their pronunciation in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (LPD) for a Standard Modern British English pronunciation. Words with alternative pronunciation are marked by means of the symbol**. When there was discrepancy between the pronunciation of the same word in the two dictionaries, the pronunciation in the LPD was used. The etymology of words is also included with the view to offering help to those interested in the origin of the phenomenon of homophony. I have deliberately omitted foreign words that would not be found in an English dictionary and are not used in English conversation, hyphenated compounds, acronyms, standard contraction and spelling variation. Inflected forms have not been taken into account unless they were separate entries in the dictionaries. I offer this dictionary in the hope that the user will appreciate it and be able to use it creatively. Rodica Hanga-Calciu [...]