bees, bise

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

The answer is simple: bees, bise are homophones of the English language.

bees
  1. :: noun

    Plural form of bee.

bise
  1. :: noun

    A cold north wind of the Swiss Alps and nearby regions of France and Italy.

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