Is there a terminology for "one word, multiple distinct etymologies"?

Question

There's a (very small) number of words that have different etymologies, and consequently different meanings. For example, the word bass can refer to:

Low sound (as in your music player), pronounced "base"
A kind of fish, pronounced "baas"

The first meaning has a Latinate origin, while the second one has a Germanic origin.

It's the only word of this kind that I know. I wonder if

Are there any more examples?
What's the name for this category of words (terminology)?

Note: Words like "present" don't count since both its noun form and its verb form come from the same Latin root.

jsw29 · Answer

The question seems to be asking for a term for a word that is not only polysemous (has different meanings), but whose different meanings are associated with completely different origins, so that one can say that one is here dealing with two entirely different words that only accidentally happened to have the same spelling. The term for such words is homonyms (but note that the use of that term requires that one speak of two different words, rather than one word with different meanings). If one wishes to focus only on the sameness of spelling, and so make it clear that the pronunciation may be different, one may call them homographs.

Answered by jsw29 on January 5, 2021

Is there a terminology for "one word, multiple distinct etymologies"?

One Answer

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question