Common Homophones List
The following list of 70 homophone pairs contains only the most common homophones, using relatively well-known words. These are headwords only. No inflections (such as third person singular "s" or noun plurals) are included. You can see more homophones in the graded homophones lists above.
| air | heir |
| aisle | isle |
| ante- | anti- |
| eye | I |
| bare | bear |
| be | bee |
| brake | break |
| buy | by |
| cell | sell |
| cent | scent |
| cereal | serial |
| coarse | course |
| complement | compliment |
| dam | damn |
| dear | deer |
| die | dye |
| fair | fare |
| fir | fur |
| flour | flower |
| for | four |
| hair | hare |
| heal | heel |
| hear | here |
| him | hymn |
| hole | whole |
| hour | our |
| idle | idol |
| in | inn |
| knight | night |
| knot | not |
| know | no |
| made | maid |
| male | |
| meat | meet |
| morning | mourning |
| none | nun |
| oar | or |
| one | won |
| pair | pear |
| peace | piece |
| plain | plane |
| poor | pour |
| pray | prey |
| principal | principle |
| profit | prophet |
| real | reel |
| right | write |
| root | route |
| sail | sale |
| sea | see |
| seam | seem |
| sight | site |
| sew | so |
| shore | sure |
| sole | soul |
| some | sum |
| son | sun |
| stair | stare |
| stationary | stationery |
| steal | steel |
| suite | sweet |
| tail | tale |
| their | there |
| to | too |
| toe | tow |
| waist | waste |
| wait | weight |
| way | weigh |
| weak | week |
| wear | where |
In a few cases, a third homophone, although possible, has not been included for simplicity. Different varieties and accents of English may produce variations in some of these pronunciations. The homophones listed here are based on Standard British English.