d _homophone_ is not recognized by Johnson or
by Richardson: Johnson under _homo-_ has six derivatives of Herbert
Spencer's favourite word _homogeneous_, but beside these only four
other words with this Greek affix. Richardson's dictionary has an even
smaller number of such entries. Jones has 11 entries of _homo-_, and
these of only five words, but the Oxford dictionary, besides 50 words
noted and quoted beginning with _homo-_, has 64 others with special
articles.

Dr. Richard Morris estimated the number of words in an English
dictionary as 100,000: Jones has 38,000 words, exclusive of proper
names, and I am told that the Oxford dictionary will have over
300,000. Its 114 _homo-_ words will show how this huge number is
partly supplied.

Before the reader plunges into the list, I should wish to fortify his
spirit against premature despair by telling him that in my tedious
searching of the dictionary for these words I was myself cheered to
find how many words there were which are _not_ homophones.

LIST OF HOMOPHONES

This list, the object of which is to make the reader easily acquainted
with the actual defect of the language in this particular, does not
pretend to be complete or scientific; and in the identification of
doubtful words the clue was dictated by brevity. _s._, _v._, and _adj._
mean _substantive_, _verb_, and _adjective_. The sections were made to
aid the conspectus.

The main indictment is contained in sections i, ii, and iii. These
three sections contain 505 entries, involving some 1,075 words.

The homophones in the other sections, iv, v, vi, vii, viii and ix,
are _generally_ of such a kind that they would not of themselves
constitute a very peculiar case against the English language; but
their addition to the main list does very much strengthen the case.
One intention in isolating them from the main list was to prevent
their contaminating it with their weaker quality; but their
separate classification crosses and sometimes overrides that more
general distinction. Section iv has some literary interest; vi is
inconsistent; the other sections are more or less scientific. These
six sections contain some 330 entries involving about 700 words, so
that the total of words involved is about 1,775.

The order in this section is that of the phonetic alphabet.

I. THE MAIN LIST OF HOMOPHONES.

arc, ark.
arm (_limb_), arm (_weapon_).
alms, arms.
aunt, ant, arn't.
arch (_s._), arch (_adj