Homophones

The most common example is the colour “red” and the past tense of the verb “read” which is also pronounced as “red” but the spelling is same as the base verb – read.

E.g. I have read all the words marked in red.

Maid/made – maid is a person who works for someone and made is past tense of the verb make.

My maid has made cupcakes today.

Their/there – their (possessive pronoun) refers to something that someone possesses. There is indicative of place.

My friends are coming. Please keep their books over there.

See/sea – to see (through eyes), sea (water body)

The family went to see the bungalow near the sea.

Sail/sale – sail means to move confidently, sale – items put up for a lesser price than MRP.

We had to sail through many difficulties to display our items on sale.

An example where the spellings are also same but meaning is different is –

My brother rose from his seat and plucked a rose. (The first rose is the past tense of rise and the second one is the flower rose!)

Now that you have got the knack of it, let’s try some exercises; these are very common words which will be useful for daily conversations!

Choose correct words in the following sentences:

1. My ___ was playing in the ___ whole day. (son, sun)

2. That’s so _____ of you to have booked a luxury _____ for us! (suite, sweet)

3. He ____ that there are many ___ joiners in this batch. (new, knew)

4. Because of her ______, we had to ____ for our turn to get into the helicopter. (weight, wait)