Homonymy

Homonymy is a relation between two or more words which have the same form but different, unrelated meanings. 


There are two types of homonyms:


Homophony / Homophones (same pronunciation but different spelling)

Words that sound the same as other words but have a different meaning or spelling, or both, are called homophones, such as the noun sea and the verb  see or the nouns flower and flour.


Homography / Homographs (same spelling but different pronunciation)

Homographs are words that are spelled the same but have a different meaning. An example is the word bow /baʊ/, meaning the front of a ship or to bow one’s head, which is spelled the same way as the word bow /bəʊ/ meaning the weapon for shooting arrows or the decorative element on a present.

Besides being semantically unrelated, homonyms normally have different historical origins (etymologies).