The term for a word that sounds the same as another but differs in meaning, like “flour” and “flower,” is homophone.
Homophones share pronunciation but may differ in spelling, meaning, or both. “Flour” and “flower” are also called heterographs because their spellings differ. Other familiar pairs include “to,” “too,” and “two,” while “rose” can be a homophone of itself when it means a flower or the past tense of “rise.”
Homophones are often confused with homographs. Homographs are words written the same way, such as “read” in “I read every day” and “I read that book yesterday,” even though the pronunciation and tense differ. Words that are both spelled and pronounced alike but have different meanings are often described as homonyms.
Accent matters, too. Words that sound different in one regional accent may become homophones in another when particular vowel or consonant distinctions have merged. Context usually resolves the ambiguity in speech, while spelling helps distinguish the meanings in writing.