Paronym
Similar-sounding word with different meaning
Paronyms are near-homophones ("soundalike"), near-homographs ("lookalike") and/or near-cognates ("meanalike"), words that are similar but not identical in pronunciation, spelling, or lexical meaning, which may cause confusion in their understanding (reception) and usage (production). Paronymy is the relationship between a pair of words or phrases which are similar or partially identical in spelling, pronunciation and/or meaning.
In the discussion of semantic analysis, the term paronym can also be used in a narrower sense to refer to words that are derived from the same root, i.e. cognate words.
01Examples
English
Examples of English paronyms include:
- accept and except
- adapt and adept
- adore and adorn
- affect and effect
- alternately and alternatively
- altitude and attitude
- artful and artistic
- artist and artisan
- authoritative and authoritarian
- barely and barley
- beautiful and bountiful
- billion and bullion
- breath and breadth
- burrow and borough
- capable and culpable
- childish and childlike
- clause and claws
- cognitive and cognizant
- college and collage
- collision and collusion
- command and commend
- confident and confidant
- conjuncture and conjecture
- conservationism and conservatism
- contagious and contingent
- continuous and contiguous
- controller and comptroller
- coral and corral
- country and county
- death and dearth
- defection and defecation
- defiant and deviant
- deprecate and depreciate
- deprived and depraved
- desperate and disparate
- detergent and deterrent
- deviant and devious
- discord and discourse
- eclipse and ellipse
- exception and exemption
- excise and exercise
- express and espresso
- extent and extant
- fitness and finesse
- flail and fail
- flaunt and flout
- fright and fraught
- gauge and gouge
- graceful and gracious
- grump and gruff
- haven and heaven
- hawk and hock
- historical and hysterical
- infection and inflection
- influence and affluence
- innocent and innocuous
- inspiration and aspiration
- kinks and kings
- lightning and lightening
- lovely and lovable
- massage and message
- motive and motif
- paronym and patronym
- plague and plaque
- popular and populous
- possible and plausible
- present and presence
- president and precedent
- proceed and precede
- profanity and profundity
- prolepsis and proslepsis
- quiet and quite
- recurring and re-occurring
- right and rite
- sensitive and sensible
- sentiment and sediment
- succeed and secede
- stupid and stupor
- telegraph and telegram
- temple and templar
- terrible and terrific
- trifle and truffle
- upmost and utmost
- willing and willful
- wreck and wreak
Spanish
Examples of Spanish paronyms include:
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Paronym”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
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