The words bight, bite, byte sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Why do bight, bite, byte sound the same even though they are completely different words?
The answer is simple: bight, bite, byte are homophones of the English language.
A loop in a rope.
The middle or slack part of an extended rope.
A bend or curve, especially in a shoreline.
A wide bay formed by such a bend or curve.
To cut, grip, or tear with or as if with the teeth.
To pierce the skin of with the teeth, fangs, or mouthparts.
To sting with a stinger.
To cut into with or as if with a sharp instrument: The ax bit the log deeply.
A sequence of adjacent bits, usually eight, operated on as a unit by a computer.
Definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition and Wordnik.
Homophones (literally "same sound") are usually defined as words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of how they are spelled.
If they are spelled the same then they are also homographs (and homonyms); if they are spelled differently then they are also heterographs (literally "different writing").