attendance, attendants

The words attendance, attendants sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Why do attendance, attendants sound the same even though they are completely different words?

The answer is simple: attendance, attendants are homophones of the English language.

attendance
  1. :: noun

    The act of attending.

  2. :: noun

    The persons or number of persons that are present.

  3. :: noun

    The frequency with which a person is present.

attendants
  1. :: noun

    Plural form of attendant.

Definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition, from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License and Wordnik.

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About Homophones

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").