Frees, Freeze, Frieze

Frees – third person present verb form of Free.
Freeze – lose enough heat to turn from a liquid into a solid.
Frieze – a wide, architectural and/or decorative band that runs horizontally along a wall beneath the ceiling or roof.
If cold weather causes your paint to peel, then you might say a freeze frees the paint from your frieze. I mean, you MIGHT say that...

Taro & Tarot

Without a T at the end – tropical plant whose edible root has a surprisingly high nutritive value.
With a T at the end – prophetic playing card with no substantive value at all.

Ewes & Use

As in, "I can utilize the wool from those female sheep."

Deference & Difference

As in, "These aren't exactly homophones, but they're very similar and easily confused. So show a little respect and be sure you can tell them apart." :)

And, please remember, they are not to be confused with:

Forth & Fourth

As in, "After the first three butterflies emerged, the fourth came forth."

Straight & Strait

Which direction did the boat sail between two outcroppings of land?
Strait.
Ba-dum-bum.

Gnu, Knew, New

This one goes out to Yvonne Treis, who emailed me recently to suggest it (possibly because she knows I like doing the animal ones best). In other words, she asked for this new post because she knew I'd want to draw the gnu.

Links & Lynx

As in, "You really shouldn't chain up a wildcat."

Vain, Vane, Vein

Oh, man, I can't think of a sentence that uses all three of these in an interesting way. You?

Penance & Pennants

As in, "I feel guilty for even knowing that the World Series is on right now."

Rappel & Repel

With an A and two Ps – a method of descending a vertical surface.
With an E – push apart.

Him & Hymn

Tide & Tied

Lead & Led

With an A – a heavy metal, atomic number 82.
Without an A – past tense of, well, Lead. Oh, sheesh, that's confusing. "Lead/Lead" would be a good candidate for Homographs, Weakly, if I decided to branch out a bit.

And speaking of heavy metal:

Cornet & Coronet

Keep calm and scabba-dabba-doo-bop. I think Louis Armstrong said that.

Tighten & Titan

And for those who like their Titans a little more astronomical, and a lot more Proper Noun:

Creak & Creek

ea – a small, irritating noise.

ee – a small, soothing river.
I might have too much going on in the Creek picture, there. Don't be surprised if I think on it some more and change it one of these days. I feel like it needs the human for scale (so you can tell it's not as big as a river), and the bridge implies permanence (so it's not someone standing beside a puddle). But I don't know, it doesn't quite look right to me. But an aerial view of a river wouldn't work either... I don't know. It is what it is... for now. :)

Some & Sum

As in, "You need to add some to get sum."

Beach & Beech

As in, "You may have noticed there was no post last week. Instead, I took a lake-y, forest-y vacation."

Tic & Tick

With a K – small, unwelcome parasite.
Without a K – small, unwelcome twitch.

Ad & Add

Two Ds – makes you smarter.

One D – makes you dumber.

Hey, it's my 200th post! And still no book deal! :P

Bread & Bred

As in, "For thousands of years the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been bred for its use in wine, beer, and bread."

Baron & Barren

Following up last week's Magnate with his twin brother the Baron. Too bad the Baroness can't bear children.
See what I did there?... :)

Magnate & Magnet

Yes, if you cornered the market on magnets, you could become a magnet magnate. I guess.
This one goes out to my buddy Abe at Green Light Music & Video in Kalamazoo, who requested this one a couple times already. I finally got to it, Abe!

Beau & Bow

Born & Borne

Without an E – birthed.
With an E – carried.

Verses & Versus

I know, I know. A rap battle would have been the perfect picture for both.

Chard & Charred

As in, "These leafy greens taste burnt."

B, Be, Bee

On the left: two Bs.
On the right: not two Bees.
In the middle: that is the question.

Sew, So, Sow

The one on the right is in honor of us finally getting our garden planted this weekend! Yay!
The one on the left is in honor of my wife Vanessa's sewing blog: Pass/Fail Sewing. Which you should totally check out... if you're sew-inclined.
And the one in the middle might be a guy gesturing "so?" but is more likely a picture of me admitting I have no idea what to draw here.

Exercise & Exorcise

I was looking up images from The Exorcist to help with my drawing this week, when I came across Viktor Hertz's brilliant pictogram movie posters, and I thought, "Jeez, he's already got this covered, why reinvent the wheel? Maybe he wouldn't mind if I featured his work sometime." Then I noticed the one on the left*, realized it would be perfect for Exercise, and knew I had to ask.
So this week's homophones are brought to you by www.viktorhertz.com where you can get completely lost drooling over all the clever pictographic interpretations of movies, songs, sayings, and more!

*Bonus points if you can guess what movie this is for. Hint: it's not Xanadu.

Jam & Jamb

With a B – the inside surface of a doorframe.
Without a B – every other use of this word you can think of.

Stake & Steak

As in, "What do you call a cow stuck in a tent?"

Disillusion & Dissolution

Disillusion – never meet your heroes.
Dissolution – never meet Walter White. (Are Breaking Bad references obsolete already?)
I also want to mention that today the Dexter District Library is hanging 40+ prints from Homophones, Weakly in their gallery on the lower level. This isn't the first time HW has leapt from the blogosphere to a gallery wall – a print of "Complement/Compliment" was recently included in the Visualizing Data exhibition at the Work: Detroit gallery – but this is HW's first ever solo exhibition! Come check it out if you're in the area.

Dew, Do, Due

I love when I can reuse and tweak bits from old posts. Not only does it make my job easier, it keeps the Homophones, Weakly universe more consistent. And I dew/do/due believe any good grammar geek strives for consistency.

Heard & Herd

Maybe you heard the herd, or maybe the herd heard you.

Genes & Jeans

Yes, they do make your butt look fat.

Mode & Mowed

Mode – (n.) method.
Mowed – (v.) past tense of Mow.
The left side makes sense, yes? Different modes of mowing the lawn? Right. Sure. Perfect. Honestly, I'm just trying to forget about all the snow I shoveled this winter.

Bold & Bowled

Tell me honestly, would an image of the starship Enterprise have been better on the left?

Borough, Burro, Burrow

Inextricably linked to New York, I'm sure you could carry the accent for Borough far enough that it would be a homophone for Borrow instead. But this grouping suits my midwestern ears better.

Son & Sun

I suppose I should have posted this on my son's birthday. Damn, looks like I won't win Father of the Year this year either. Sigh. So let's just say today's post is in honor of finally getting some warm weather around here. I love you, sun.

Cereal & Serial

As in, "These Lucky Charms are too cold, these Lucky Charms are too hot, but these Lucky Charms are juuuuuust right."

Hear & Here

Foul & Fowl

With a U – disgusting.
With a W – delicious.

Ceiling & Sealing

As in, "I could spend the weekend sealing the cracks in my ceiling, but I'd rather binge-watch Sherlock."

Pray & Prey

Do I dare make a snarky comment about religion here?
No, I do not. Look, a snake!

Groan & Grown

As in, "You can moan and groan all you want, but the grass needs to be mown because it has grown too long."
See what I did there?