Key & Quay

I think this must set the record for homophones with the fewest letters in common!

Moor & More

-oor – (v.) secure a vessel by tying it down.

-ore – (adj.) a larger amount.

Bough & Bow

-ough – tree branch.
-ow – (v.) bend formally at the waist. (n.) the front end of a ship.
But remember not to confuse these kinds of bows with these kinds of bows!

Currant & Current

With an A – a type of berry.
With an E – (n) a flow of water or electricity. (adj.) belonging to the present time.

Sail & Sale

Straight & Strait

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

Tide & Tied

Desert & Dessert

This pair of words is a little more complicated than most here at HW, because half the time they aren't homophones at all. Desert has two distinct definitions and pronunciations, only one of which is pronounced like Dessert (de-ZURT). So, technically, we have three words here: two of which have the same spelling but different pronunciations (homographs), and a third that is a homophone of one of the homographs. Sheesh, sorry about that. Anyway, you can see that no matter which definition you intend, it's always a challenge making sure it's spelled correctly.
The trick I was taught to remember is that Dessert has two Ss instead of one because it's the only one you want MORE of. But this trick only holds up until you've eaten pumpkin pie, at which point the sentence "I wish I could desert this dessert in the desert" leaps to mind.

Locks & Lox

Locks – chambers for raising and lowering ships to different levels of a waterway. Or devices used to secure a storage container. (Notice these are plural nouns. But "locks" is also a present tense verb form for using a lock.)

Lox – brined salmon. (Notice this is a singular noun, and I don't believe it has a plural form. Lox can be measured in plural amounts or pieces or varieties, etc. But as far as I can tell you can't have "loxes." I could be wrong here, of course.)

As in, "The captain locks the lox in a box using locks, until the ship is through the locks." A perfectly logical sentence.
By the way, I would have posted this earlier in the day, honestly, but I started drawing and then was like, "oh my god I have to go buy some bagels and lox right now." #soimpressionable

Also, please note I didn't include the word "lochs," because although it's fairly common in certain English usage (well, pretty much "Loch Ness monster" and nothing else), the word isn't actually English. So I didn't include it. Anyway, it's Gaelic for "lake."

Fairy & Ferry

Dedicated to my son, who is more than a little obsessed with magical creatures AND public transit.

Peer & Pier

Peer – (n.) comrade, companion, a person of similar status to another.  (v.) stare intently and/or secretly.
Pier – (n.) walkway extending out over water, supported by posts.

Knot & Not

With a K – the hard mass of wood where a branch met the trunk of a tree. Or, the hard mass where a piece or pieces of cord are intertwined. Or, a measure of nautical speed equal to one mile per hour.
Without a K – an adverb used to negate the phrase that it modifies.

Arc & Ark

Couldn't make up my mind which pair of drawings to post today. On the one hand, I like the similarity of shapes in this one:

On the other hand, any excuse to run this one again is good enough for me:

Rose & Rows

This week a pair of homophones, both of which are also pairs of homonyms. So for each word we have two separate definitions.
Rose –
(n.) the flower which by any other name, I've read somewhere would smell the same.
(v.) past tense of rise.
Rows –
(n.) plural form of row: objects arranged more or less in a straight line.
(v.) third person singular present tense (or something like that) of row: to propel a boat with an oar.

PS, Please no horticulturalists nitpicking the rose plants, OK?

fan male & to air is human

I recently received this email that just totally made my day. The sender said it was OK to share it with you:
I just wanted to tell you that I very much appreciate your homophones weakly blog. I discovered it while I was looking for decorations for a birthday party. I work with an elderly woman and every year for her birthday we have a homophone bee (although, to be fair, she calls them homonyms. I can't blame her, I think that is what they taught in schools in the 20s and 30s). This year was her 90th birthday and I made prints of your pictures for her and her great grandchildren. English is the children's second language and they are too young to read, so the images really helped. I have never met a person more interested in homophones than this lady. Thank you for blogging something of interest to us. 

And then they went through and highlighted all the words that have homophones – that's dedication! :)

Anyway, I just want to thank everyone for reading this blog every week. It's fun for me, so it's nice to hear that you like it too.

But at the same time, I'm embarrassed to announce that I made a mistake a few months back with Road & Rode. Somehow I left out Rowed. (Seems like every time that pesky biker shows up, he needs three panels.) So here is the corrected image. Not much different, really. But I'm sure we'll all sleep a little bit better tonight now, won't we?

Oar, Or, Ore

Plus one for the hockey fans:

Naval & Navel

-al – relating to a navy, ships.
-el – bellybutton.

While we're at it, which do you prefer: "bellybutton" or "belly button"?