The last classification can confuse you the because they sound the same and can have either the same or different spelling and that is called a homonym. One is the outside of left and the other requires a pen or pencil. An example are the terms right and write. Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. This could be a fish you pull out of the river or a tone of music that could make your car shake. The homograph that makes me scratch my head is 'bass'. The first classification is homographs, these are terms that are spelled the same, but they have different pronunciations and meanings. Interest fact as these terms start with the prefix homo-, which means the same.
There are three common classifications of words that have multiple meanings: homographs, homonyms, and homophones. In most cases the context the words are used in dictates the part of speech the word serves as and as a result the meaning intended for the word.
If you have a dictionary handy, take a look! It is hard to find that word that only has one meaning, is it? Most of these words only have a slight difference in meaning from their root definition, but some words can be opposites as well. When you include slang, close to three-quarters of those words have more than one meaning. At last look, the English language is made up of one hundred-seventy thousand words.
