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wood for propelling arrows; lead [li:d], v. – to conduct on the
way, go before to show the way; lead [led] n. – a heavy, rather soft
metal).
Homoforms are words identical in some of their
grammatical forms (e.g. to bound (jump, spring) – bound (past
participle of the verb bind); found (establish) found (past
participle of the verb find).
Paronyms are words that are alike in form, but different in
meaning and usage. They are liable to be mixed and sometimes
mistakenly interchanged. The term paronym comes from the Greek
para "beside" and onoma "name" (e.g. precede ↔ proceed;
preposition ↔ proposition; popular ↔ populous; grateful ↔
gracious)
There are several sources of homonyms:
a) phonetic changes which words undergo in the course of
their historical development. As a result of such changes, two or
more words which were formerly pronounced differently may
develop identical sound forms and thus become homonyms (e.g.
night and knight were not homonyms in Old English as the initial
k in the second word was pronounced, and not dropped as it is in
its modern sound form;
b) conversion which serves the creating of grammatical
homonyms (e.g. iron →to iron, work→ to work, etc.);
c) shortening is a further type of word-building which
increases the number of homonyms (e.g. fan, n. in the sense of "an
enthusiastic admirer of some kind of sport or of an actor, singer" is
a shortening produced from fanatic;
d) borrowing is another source of homonyms. A borrowed
word may, in the final stage of its phonetic adaptation, duplicate in
form either a native word or another borrowing (e.g. ritus Lat. →
rite n. – write v. – right adj.; pais OFr → piece,n. – pettia OFr →
peace n.);
e) words made by sound-imitation can also form pairs of
homonyms with other words (e.g. bang, n. "a loud, sudden,

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