Homophones

Homograph, homophone, homonym These terms describe relationships of similarity between words. Homographs are words which have the same spelling (sometimes with different pronunciations) but different meanings:saw (noun and past tense verb); row (/rəʋ/ and /raʋ/) Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation but different meanings:meat–meet, flour–flower, bare–bear
Words which sound exactly the same (but which are spelt differently and have totally different meanings) , are called homophones.
Homo is a Latin prefix which means same, (homogenised milk has all the fat globules mixed through to give the same mix);
phono is a Latin word meaning sound (phonology is the science of vocal sounds; phonetics are the sounds of a spoken language).

Homophones are words that are spelt differently but pronounced the same.  Bear/bare and tear/tier are homophones. 
Other examples are:   I/ eye,  weight/ wait, cents/sense, faze/ phase, I'll/ aisle,  gnu/ knew/new, /holy/wholly, or kneed/knead/need. 
Homophones are not only words which are spelt differently but sound alike.  They are also words which are spelt and pronounced exactly the same but have very different meaning. It is a fine day. (adjective)   The IRS will fine over a million people this year. (verb)  The offender had to pay a fine. (noun)  Thank you, I'm doing fine. (adverb).    Sometimes, the difference in meaning can be very similar as the difference between brush vs. to brush or nail vs. to nail.  It can also be as different as skirt vs. to skirt, back vs. to back, or book vs. to book.…