homoiophone

plural homoiophones · alternative homeophone · alternative homoeophone · alternative homœophone

1. A word similar — but not identical — in pronunciation with another; compare homeograph and homophone.

   This was through the existence of homophones and homoiophones, that is, of words with different meanings but the same or nearly the same sound.

   1893: Johan Harold Josua Lindahl, Description of a Skull of Megalonyx Leidyi, page 56 (American Philosophical Society)

   4 more examples

   This was through the existence of homophones and homoiophones in a language, of words with the same or similar sounds, but with diverse significations.

   1886: Stephen Denison Peet [ed.], The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal, volume 8, page 349 (Jameson & Morse)

   Have you any idea as to what ought to be done with what I believe you pepel call homophones or homoiophones. I hope that is not the right name for them. But is it not foolish to have an educated nation that refuses to readjust such inconveniences?

   1911, July 6ᵗʰ: Robert Seymour Bridges, Correspondence of Robert Bridges and Henry Bradley, 1900–1923, page 81 (The Clarendon Press)

   By way of bringing this intricate and tedious dissertation to an end, allow me to recite a short specimen of the thing itself — a Siamese “jaw-breaker” which, for ingenious bewilderment by means of homoiophones, I am sure does not fall behind our “Theophilus Thistle the Thistle-sifter,” while in coloratura of intonation it certainly leaves that far behind.

   1924, American Oriental Society, Journal of the American Oriental Society, volume 44, page 28

   Another explanation relates to the actual use of homophony-generating rules; perhaps pseudohomophones are not homophones but rather ‘homoiophones’, that is, phonologically similar but not exactly equal to their word mates.

   1987, Alan Allport, editor, Language Perception and Production: Relationships Between Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, Academic Press, →ISBN, page 237, →ISBN