"Homonymy" is the relationship between the concept and the name that occurs when multiple meanings share the same word, but the concepts to which it refers have no similarity. The fact that the name and spelling are the same is mere coincidence, since they generally have very distant origins.
"Homophones" belong to this group of dificult words. Their spelling do not match and have also different meaning, but the phonology is always the same.
"Homographs" are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and are often pronounced differently as well.
The last two include Heterograph and Heteronym respectively as special cases.
The next picture pretty much sums up the distinctive characteristics of each group.
I consider very effective and useful the exercises that Spelling City chose related with the words's list to better understand the definitions. I mean: Audio Word Match, a traditional memory match game that increases familiarity with terms by allowing students to match words they both see and hear read aloud; and Word Videos, in which students choose from a variety of options to create their own word video for their spelling and vocabulary words. Finally everything learned is tested in a fun exercise against the clock: Speedy Speller.
Now I leave another picture with some representative examples, so that you can realize better the differences. I also invite you access the link and consult as regards homonyms, homophones and homographs in Vocabulary Spelling City, paying particular attention to the homophones (sound alike words)
