# Words with most homophones? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 26, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376 "2011-07-26T12:49:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/121 "2018-06-19T15:39:47Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Just like other examples it comes down to dialect. In casual speech I’d pronounce boor the same as bore and boar. I would pronounce Boer differently, however. Most dictionaries indicate that “boor” is pronounced with a long a. As I said, Boer has several variants listed. > [@Chronos](#): > > or a Mexican sauce. Though I think the last of those is pronounced differently. The Mexican sauce is pronounced _mo-lay_. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/122 "2018-06-19T16:41:35Z")
Something close: Zombie Zombie Zombie Zombie All four words are spelt the same and have the same meaning … ETA: They’re all pronounced the same too … ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/123 "2018-06-19T17:17:24Z")
In what dialect? Around here, “zombie” and “zombie” are pronounced completely differently (though they are both pronounced the same as “zombie”). ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/124 "2018-06-19T20:18:06Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Most dictionaries indicate that “boor” is pronounced with a long a. Assuming you meant “o” and not “a”, this in no way contradicts **Ludovic** ’s claim that the pronunciation varies by dialect. Indeed, your assertion that only “most” dictionaries give this pronunciation implies that at least some do not, so obviously the other pronunciation(s) are common enough to have attracted the attention of lexicographers. I can personally attest to having often heard “boor” pronounced with the same vowel as “bore”. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/125 "2018-06-20T01:55:32Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > Regarding “pin” and “pin”, here in NC I have a friend who (to my Yankee ear) says the two words the same, but also (to my ear) gives both words two syllables: “pee-in”. I agree and I don’t think it’s subject to my NY ear. In many Southern accents they call the thing you write with what we call something you’d stick yourself with and spell p-i-n, a pin. And the majority in many such states don’t vote for the Dimocrats (not intended as an insult, just how it’s pronounced). 🙂 In at least some Southern accents though the thing you’d stick yourself with I agree is more like a pee-in. Maybe in some sorta Southern places you write with a pin and stick yourself with a pin, and thus pen and pin are heterographs. Nut in the Old South in general I’d say not. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/126 "2018-06-20T07:21:55Z")
TIL from a zombie that the rest of the Anglophone world pronounces gnu with a silent G (except England where some seemingly consciously pronounce a hard G _because of a comic song_ - imagine if the English all said keniggits _as the default_ because of _Holy Grail_.) Maybe it’s because the word comes from here, but I’ve always pronounced it with a hard G. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/127 "2018-06-20T11:59:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Boor is not a homophone of bore or boar; it is pronounced with a long o … > [@Colibri](#): > > Most dictionaries indicate that “boor” is pronounced with a long a… I assume the “long a” was a misprint for “long o.” But the vowel of ‘boor’ (rhymes with ‘lure’) is not what was called ‘long o’ when I went to school, IIRC. I think that sound was called ‘long u.’ ‘Long o’ was the vowel in ‘boat’ or ‘bore.’ ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376/128 "2018-06-20T14:58:28Z")
> [@Enilno](#): > > A few more, following your constraints more or less: > 势 - power/influence > 释 - explain > 誓 - oath > 氏 - clan/surname > 逝 - pass away > 柿 - persimmon I’m curious whether there’s any debate about the constraint ‘must work as a standalone word’. It seems key, otherwise loads of different characters have the same pronunciation, right? This is generally even more true in Korean with no morphological tonality, somewhat offset by ending vowel sounds and more variation in starting consonants and vowels aside from tone, eg. the characters above are se, seok, seo, ssi, seo and shi respectively in Korean. But there are for example 37 characters in the ‘okpyeon’ (a Korean Chinese character dictionary) app on my phone which are shi (시 in hangul). There are 7 standalone words (including two prefixes) shi (시) in an abridged dictionary: 市 (시) city 時 (시) time 詩 (시) poetry 시 (indigenous) a musical note 시 (indigenous) an exclamation like ‘damn!’ 시- (indigenous) prefix, vivid, like a color 시-( 媤) prefix, pertaining to a woman’s in-laws Going to just the next hangul-alphabetic entry in a Korean dictionary there are at least 9 two syllable words which are spelled 시가 in hangul, shi-ga, though only 6 are common enough to show up in abridged dictionaries: 市街 city street 市價 market price 始價 opening price (say of a stock) 時價 current price 時價 Chinese homophone for previous, length of note or rest in musical notation 媤家 one’s husband’s family 詩家 (less common word for) poet 詩歌 poems and songs or just poetry 시가 the English word ‘cigar’ Looking extensively, armed with a big dictionary, I’m sure someone could come up with phoneme combinations with more examples, of Korean heterographs in the sense of having different underlying Chinese characters (or Sino-Korean v indigenous/foreign loan), though in theory if two words in Korean are pronounced the same way they must be spelled the same way in hangul (with relatively few real world exceptions). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-with-most-homophones/590376.md?page=6)