Word of the Day

: July 5, 2014

homonymous

adjective hoh-MAH-nuh-mus

What It Means

1 : ambiguous

2 : having the same designation

3 : of, relating to, or being homonyms

homonymous in Context

We always called the elder Michael "Big Mike" to distinguish him from his homonymous son.

"Weezer's latest disc and its third to be self-titled (it's being referred to as 'The Red Album' just as the previous pair of homonymous albums are commonly called the 'Blue' and 'Green' albums, respectively) has no shortage of the kind of pure pop melodies that endeared Weezer to millions of geek-rock kids back in the mid-'90s." - Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe, September 23, 2008

Did You Know?

The "ambiguous" sense of "homonymous" refers mainly to words that have two or more meanings. In the 1600s, logicians and scientists who wanted to refer to (or complain about) such equivocal words chose a name for them based on Latin and Greek, from Greek "hom-" ("same") and "onyma" ("name"). In time, English speakers came up with another sense of "homonymous," referring to two things having the same name (Hawaii, the state, and Hawaii, the island, for example). Next came the use of "homonymous" to refer to homonyms, such as "see" and "sea." There's also a zoological sense. Sheep and goats whose right horn spirals to the right and left horn spirals to the left are said to be "homonymous."