homonymousadj.
/həʊˈmɒnɪməs/ 1.
a. Denoting different things by the same name (said of the same word used in different senses in Taxonomy, etc.); equivocal, ambiguous.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > naming > [adjective] > having the same name > denoting different things by the same name
homonymous1623
1623 W. Sclater Quæstion of Tythes 115 Your Minor is euery whit homonymous.
1656 T. Stanley Hist. Philos. II. vi. 43 Termes are of three kindes, Homonymous, Homonymous, Synonymous, and Paronymous. Homonymous, whose name only is common, their essence divers.
a1661 T. Fuller Worthies (1662) Lanc. 120 John Smith..became Fellow and Proctor of the University [of Cambridge], when past Sixty years of age, when the Prevaricators gave him this Homony [m] ous Salute Ave Pater.
1725 I. Watts Logick i. iv. §6 Equivocal words, or those which signify several things, are called homonymous, or ambiguous.
1801 H. T. Colebrooke in Asiatick Researches (London ed.) (1803) 7 216 A list of homonymous indeclinables is subjoined.
1896 Ld. Walsingham & J. H. Durrant Rules for Nomencl. 9 Invalid names considered merely as words are of three classes:—(1) Homonymous (i.e. the same name applied to different conceptions).
1964 Internat. Code Zool. Nomencl. 55 Homonymy does not exist between two identical species-group names originally or subsequently placed in different genera that bear homonymous names.
b. Philology. Of the nature of homonyms: said of words identical in sound but different in sense.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > homonymy > [adjective]
homonymic1862
homonymous1876
1876 T. Le M. Douse Grimm's Law §17. 34 The meanings of the several primitives are in general so widely different that the homonymous derivatives remain to all time clearly distinguished in use.
2.
a. Having, or called by, the same name.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > naming > [adjective] > having the same name
homonymal1641
namesake1650
cognominal1656
homonymous1658
synonymous1734
cognominous1857
1658 E. Phillips New World Eng. Words Homonymous, things of several kindes, having the same denomination, a Term in Logick.
1749 D. Hartley Observ. Man i. i. 99 The homonymous nerves of the right and left Sides.
1881 Athenæum 26 Feb. 305/2 There seems to have been..a single capital, homonymous with the island.
b. Optics. Applied to the two images of one object seen in looking at a point nearer than the object, when the right image is that seen by the right eye and the left by the left: opposed to heteronymous adj. 2. Also applied to diplopia in which images are doubled in this way. Of hemianopia: characterized by the loss of vision in the same half (left or right) of the visual field of each eye.
ΘΚΠ
the world > physical sensation > sight and vision > thing seen > [adjective] > (retained) visual image
homonymous1881
idioretinal1890
positive1899
1881 J. Le Conte Sight ii. i. 95 When we look at the farther finger, the nearer one is so doubled that the left image belongs to the right eye and the right image to the left eye..; when we look at the nearer finger, the farther one is so doubled that the right image belongs to the right eye and the left image to the left eye. In the former case, the images are said to be heteronymous, i.e. of different name, and in the latter case they are said to be homonymous, i.e. of the same name, as the eye.
1882 Ophthalmic Rev. I. 253 The more exactly the cause of a homonymous hemianopia can be localised in the cortex of one occipital lobe, the more improbable becomes the theory of Charcot and Landolt.
1884 H. E. Juler Handbk. Ophthalmic Sci. v. 383 This projection of the object to o′ is on the same side as the deviating eye l, and the diplopia is therefore called homonymous.
1966 S. Lerman Basic Ophthalmol. viii. 467 If the left eye deviates inward..the patient will suffer from a homonymous (uncrossed) diplopia.
Derivatives
hoˈmonymously adv.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > homonymy > [adverb]
homonymously1751
1751 J. Harris Hermes iii. iii. 341 One Word may be, not homonymously, but truly and essentially common to many Particulars, past present and future.
1881 J. Le Conte Sight 120 When we look at the farther finger, the nearer one is doubled heteronymously;—when we look at the nearer finger, the farther one is doubled homonymously.
Draft additions 1993
3. Zoology. Of animal horns or their shape: such that the right horn core forms a right-handed spiral, and vice versa. Also applied to animals having horns of this type.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > animal body > general parts > head and neck > [adjective] > having horns > having homonymous horns > of horns: homonymous
homonymous1901
the world > animals > animal body > general parts > head and neck > [adjective] > having horns > having homonymous horns
homonymous1951
1901 G. Wherry in Nature 10 Jan. 252/2 In sheep the right-hand spiral is on the right of the head, and the left spiral on the left side of the head (homonymous, or same name).
1912 R. Lydekker Sheep & its Cousins ii. 17 In reality the horns of the red sheep have the same (homonymous) spiral as those of the mouflon, but the curves are somewhat differently arranged.
1951 Jrnl. Heredity 42 81 (caption) The spiral of the horns of homonymous breeds is often eliminated by castration, but this is not the case with heteronymously spiralled forms.
1983 Devendra & Burns Goat Production in Tropics (ed. 2) x. 135 The heteronymously twisted horn shape of the markhor is dominant to the homonymous twist typical of domestic goats.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1899; most recently modified version published online September 2021).
<
adj.1623