heteronym
nounUK /ˈhɛt.əɹ.ə(ʊ).nɪm/ · US /ˈhɛt.ə.ɹoʊ.nɪm/
Etymology By surface analysis, hetero (“different”) + -onym (“name”). Compare Ancient Greek ἑτερώνυμος (heterṓnumos). First attested in 1885 in sense 1. The coining of this term in sense 3 (as Portuguese heterónimo) is usually attributed to Fernando Pessoa.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Dated Calque.
2
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences A word having the same spelling as another, but with a different meaning and (often) pronunciation.
- Near-synonyms: heterophone, homograph
- The word lead (/ˈlɛd/), for the metal, and lead (/ˈliːd/), for a leash, are heteronyms.
1 more example
- The word agape, "astonished" or "wide open," is a heteronym of agape, "Christian love."
3
Literature, Media, Publishing A fictitious character created by an author for the purpose of writing in a different style.
- […] the present paper aims at illuminating the origins of the concept under study, as well as presenting its readers with the reasons why certain characters in some of Yeats’s works go beyond mere masks and personae and fulfil the criteria to be considered as heteronyms.2018, Hamid Ghahremani Kouredarei, Nahid Shahbazi Moghadam, “W.B. Yeats and the Introduction of Heteronym into the Western Literary Canon”, in Studi Irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies, volume 8, number 8, →DOI, page 357:
- Heteronyms are the distinct poetic personae that Pessoa adopted during the writing of his poems, and who were presented as their true authors.2021, Niall Kennedy, “The Intercessor or Heteronym in Gilles Deleuze and Fernando Pessoa”, in Paulo de Assis, Paolo Giudici, editors, Machinic Assemblages of Desire: Deleuze and Artistic Research 3, Leuven University Press, →ISBN, page 274:
- Derived terms
- heteronymic, heteronymous