Homoglyph

Pronunciation

• RP enPR: hŏʹmōglÄ­f, IPA: /ˈhÉ’məʊglɪf/

Origin

First attested in 1938; formed as -("same") + glyph after homograph.

Full definition of homoglyph

Noun

1. A character identical or nearly identical in appearance to another, but which differs in the meaning it represents.
• 1938, Sylvanus Morley, The Inscriptions of IV, page 43The E variant of the moon sign may perhaps be regarded as a homoglyph.
• 1990, NIAS Report, page 34The lower case “L”, Upper case “i”, and Numeral “One” are homoglyphs.
• 2007, Shinji Ido, Bukharan Tajik language, page 4All the other consonant phonemes are transcribed into the homoglyphs of their IPA representations.
• 2009, Theodore Rosendorf, The Typographic Desk Reference, page 50The pair shown is the letter f and the guilder currency sign Æ’. Homoglyphs can also occur within the same writing system.