Tern - turn

The words tern and turn are homophones - both pronounced IPA: /tɜː^rn/. A spell-checker will not tell the difference between them, so the writer must.

• There are two words with the spelling tern (both of them nouns). The first word denotes a type of sea-bird of which there are several different species, while the second denotes a type of three-masted schooner (or, though rarely, a group of three items).
• The word turn, which is of far more frequent use, may be either a noun or a verb. Both as a noun and as a verb it has a great variety of meanings, all deriving from the basic idea of moving, or causing to move, around an axis or through the arc of a circle.