Which statement about homophones is most accurate?

• A. Words that rhyme.
• B. Words with identical spellings and meanings.
• C. Words that sound the same but have different spellings or meanings.
• D. Words that are synonyms.

Answer: (C)

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings or meanings. This is why knights and nights, seen and sea, or right, rite, and write all pair up as homophones—the pronunciation is identical, even though the spellings and what they mean differ. The important point is the exact same sound across the whole word, not just a similar ending or an overall sense. Rhymes, by contrast, rely on ending sounds and don’t require the words to be pronounced identically. Synonyms focus on similar meanings, not on how they sound. So the statement that homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings or meanings captures this idea precisely.