homonimami

Homonimami is a term used in some linguistic and lexicographic contexts to refer to a set of words that share the same form but have different meanings. In English, the corresponding concept is commonly called homonyms. The specific label and its plural form vary by language, and in some traditions homonimami may be used to denote the plural of a word for homonym.

The term derives from the Greek roots homo- meaning same and onoma meaning name. The idea is that multiple lexical items are identical in form, creating ambiguity when they are used in isolation. The exact boundaries of the category can differ among languages and disciplines, which leads to variations in how strictly form, pronunciation, and meaning are required to align.

In linguistic terminology, homonimami are discussed alongside related concepts such as homographs (same spelling, which may or may not involve the same pronunciation) and homophones (same pronunciation, possibly different spellings). Some authors treat homonyms as a broad umbrella term, while others distinguish true homonyms as words that are identical in both form and pronunciation but distinct in meaning. Polysemy, where a single word with a shared core sense develops multiple related meanings, is a related but distinct phenomenon.

Examples commonly cited include bank (financial institution) versus bank (side of a river); lead (to guide) versus lead (the metal); and bat (the animal) versus bat (the sports implement). Understanding homonimami is important for dictionaries, language learning, and natural language processing, where disambiguation of ambiguous forms is a common challenge.