Heteronym
"Sow" has two different pronunciations with two different meanings. Say SOH when it means to plant seeds (verb), and SOW (rhymes with cow) when it means a female pig (noun). Which one is correct depends entirely on the sentence.
verb
SOH
to plant seeds
“Farmers sow seeds in spring.”
noun
SOW (rhymes with cow)
a female pig
“The sow had six piglets.”
Each button speaks the respelling, not the spelling — otherwise the speech engine would pick a single default pronunciation for both senses.
| Pronunciation | Part of speech | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| SOH | verb | to plant seeds |
| SOW (rhymes with cow) | noun | a female pig |
"Sow" has two different pronunciations with two different meanings. Say SOH when it means to plant seeds (verb), and SOW (rhymes with cow) when it means a female pig (noun). Which one is correct depends entirely on the sentence.
Pronounced SOH, "sow" is a verb meaning to plant seeds. For example: "Farmers sow seeds in spring."
Pronounced SOW (rhymes with cow), "sow" is a noun meaning a female pig. For example: "The sow had six piglets."
"Sow" is a heteronym: two distinct words that happen to be spelled the same way. English spelling did not standardise around pronunciation, so unrelated words sometimes converged on one spelling while keeping separate sounds.
See the full entry for “sow”, browse all 76 heteronyms and stress pairs, or learn how English stress works.