Polysemy, Homonym, Homophone, and Homograph

A.  Polyseme

A polyseme is a word or phrase with different, but related senses. Since the test for polysemy is the vague concept of relatedness, judgments of polysemy can be difficult to make. Because applying pre-existing words to new situations is a natural process of language change, looking at words' etymology is helpful in determining polysemy but not the only solution; as words become lost in etymology, what once was a useful distinction of meaning may no longer be so. Some apparently unrelated words share a common historical origin, however, so etymology is not an infallible test for polysemy, and dictionary writers also often defer to speakers' intuitions to judge polysemy in cases where it contradicts etymology. English has many words which are polysemous. For example, the verb "to get" can mean "procure" (I'll get the drinks), "become" (she got scared), "understand" (I get it) etc.

In vertical polysemy a word refers to a member of a subcategory (e.g., 'dog' for 'male dog').^[4] A closely related idea is metonym, in which a word with one original meaning is used to refer to something else connected to it.

Examples

Man

1.        The human species (i.e., man vs. animal)

2.        Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman)

3.        Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)

This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a taxonomy. Example 1 contains 2, and 2 contains 3.

Mole

1.        a small burrowing mammal

2.        consequently, there are several different entities called moles (see the Mole disambiguation page). Although these refer to different things, their names derive from 1. :e.g. A Mole burrows for information hoping to go undetected.

Bank

1.        a financial institution

2.        the building where a financial institution offers services

3.        a synonym for 'rely upon' (e.g. "I'm your friend, you can bank on me"). It is different, but related, as it derives from the theme of security initiated by 1.

However: a river bank is a homonym to 1 and 2, as they do not share etymologies. It is a completely different meaning.^[15] River bed, though, is polysemous with the beds on which people sleep.

Book

1.        a bound collection of pages

2.        a text reproduced and distributed (thus, someone who has read the same text on a computer has read the same book as someone who had the actual paper volume)

3.        to make an action or event a matter of record (e.g. "Unable to book a hotel room, a man sneaked into a nearby private residence where police arrested him and later booked him for unlawful entry.")

Newspaper

1.        a company that publishes written news.

2.        a single physical item published by the company.

3.        the newspaper as an edited work in a specific format (e.g. "They changed the layout of the newspaper's front page").

The different meanings can be combined in a single sentence, e.g. "John used to work for the newspaper that you are reading."

Milk

The verb milk (e.g. "he's milking it for all he can get") derives from the process of obtaining milk.

Wood

1.        a piece of a tree

2.        a geographical area with many trees

Crane

1.        a bird

2.        a type of construction equipment

3.        to strain out one's neck

B.  Homonymy

A homonym is one of a group of words that share the same pronunciation but have different meanings, whether spelled the same or not. A more restrictive definition sees homonyms as words that are simultaneously homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of their pronunciation) and homophones (words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of their spelling).^[1] The relationship between a set of homonyms is called homonymy. Examples of homonyms are the pair stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left (past tense of leave) and left (opposite of right). A distinction is sometimes made between "true" homonyms, which are unrelated in origin, such as skate (glide on ice) and skate (the fish), and polysemous homonyms, or polysemes, which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of an animal).
In non-technical contexts, the term "homonym" may be used (somewhat confusingly) to refer to words that are either homographs or homophones. The words row (propel with oars) and row (argument) and row (a linear arrangement of seating) are considered homographs, while the words read (peruse) and reed (waterside plant) would be considered homophones; under this looser definition, both groups of words represent groups of homonyms.

Homonym is a word that is spelt the same or sounds the same

as another word but is different in meaning.

Air	heir		loan	lone
Ail	ale		made	maid
allowed	aloud		mail	male
arc	ark		main	mane
ate	eight		meat	meet
bad	bade		medal	meddle
bail	bale		missed	mist
bald	bawled		muscle	mussel
ball	bawl		none	nun
bare	bear		oar	ore
beach	beech		one	won
bean	been		pail	pale
bear	bare		pain	pane
beat	beet		pair	pear
bee	be		patience	patients
beet	beat		peace	piece
bell	belle		peal	peel
berry	bury		plain	plane
birth	berth		plane	plain
blue	blew		pore	pour
boar	bore		practice	practise
board	bored		praise	prays
bough	bow		pray	prey
bow	bough		principal	principle
boy	buoy		profit	prophet
brake	break		rain	reign
buy	by/bye		rap	wrap
ceiling	sealing		read	reed
cell	sell		read	red
cent	sent		right	write
cheap	cheep		ring	wring
check	cheque		road	rode
coarse	course		role	roll
cord	chord		root	route
dear	deer		rose	rows
die	dye		sale	sail
dun	done		scene	seen
Dye	die		sea	see
ewe	you		seam	seem
eye	I		sew	sow
fair	fare		sight	site
feat	feet		soar	sore
find	fined		sole	soul
flea	flee		son	sun
flew	flu		soot	suit
flour	flower		stair	stare
flower	flour		stake	steak
fool	full		steal	steel
fore	four		stile	style
forth	fourth		suite	sweet
foul	fowl		tail	tale
fur	fir		tear	tier
gait	gate		their	there
grate	great		threw	through
groan	grown		throne	thrown
hair	hare		tide	tied
hall	haul		to	two
heal	heel		told	tolled
hear	here		too	to, two
heard	herd		towed	toad
here	hear		urn	earn
higher	hire		vain	vein
him	hymn		vale	veil
hole	whole		Vein	vane, vain
hour	our		waist	waste
idle	idol		Wait	weight
key	quay		Way	weigh
knew	new		weak	week
knight	night		wear	where
knot	not		whole	hole
know	no		witch	which
lain	lane		wood	would
lead	led		write	right
leak	leek		yoke	yolk
lessen	lesson		Yore	Your

C.  Homophone

A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, and may differ in spelling. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms. Homophones that are spelled differently are also called heterographs. The term "homophone" may also apply to units longer or shorter than words, such as phrases, letters or groups of letters that are pronounced the same as another phrase, letter or group of letters.

This is a list of British-English homophones.

accessary, accessory ad, add ail, ale air, heir aisle, I'll, isle all, awl allowed, aloud alms, arms altar, alter arc, ark aren't, aunt ate, eight auger, augur auk, orc aural, oral away, aweigh awe, oar, or, ore axel, axle aye, eye, I bail, bale bait, bate baize, bays bald, bawled ball, bawl band, banned bard, barred bare, bear bark, barque baron, barren base, bass

D.  homograph

The word homograph originated from the Greek word homos that means “the same” and graph means “to write”, and it is used extensively in language. It can be defined as words that are used in such a manner as to give two or more different meanings where the words have the same spelling, but different meanings and sometimes different pronunciation as well.
Put quite simply, a homograph is a group (usually a pair) of words that are spelled the same way, but have different meanings. They may or may not be pronounced the same way, although the difference in pronunciation is often just a shift in the accented syllable.
There is a whole class of homographs that end in -ate, usually with one being a verb and the other being a noun or an adjective related to it. For example:

• "Advocate" can be pronounced with a long "a" sound and mean “to speak or write in support of”
• "Advocate" can also be pronounced with a short "a" sound and refer to a person who supports or pleads the cause of another.

Now that you know what they are, here are examples of homographs:

• accent - stress or emphasis/a manner of speaking or pronunciation influenced by the region in which one lives or grew up
• agape - wide open/a Greek word meaning “love”
• attribute - a characteristic or quality/to think of as belonging to or originating in some person, place or thing
• axes - the plural of ax or axe/the plural of axis
• bass - a deep voice or tone/a kind of fish
• bat - a piece of sporting equipment used in baseball/a winged animal associated with vampires
• bow - to bend at the waist/the front of a boat/a pair of tied loops
• buffet - to hit, punch or slap/a self-serve food bar
• bustier - an undergarment/more busty
• compact - small/to make small/a small case for holding makeup
• compound - to mix or combine/an enclosed area with a building or group of buildings inside
• content - happy or satisfied/all that is contained inside something
• contract - an agreement/to get, acquire or incur
• coordinates - brings into proper place or order/a set of numbers used to calculate position
• desert - a hot, arid region/to leave

References :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym
http://www.myenglishgrammar.com/list-25-homonyms.html
http://literarydevices.net/homograph/
http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-homographs.html
http://www.singularis.ltd.uk/bifroest/misc/homophones-list.html
http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/homophones/