Row (homograph)

Two words commonly used which look the same but have different pronunciations (they are homographs) are represented by the letters row.

• Two (three) words rhyme with go and show (IPA: /rəʊ/).
  • A row is a straight line of things, people or animals, etc. In statistics, educational work, and in computers generally, it frequently means the horizontal (left to right) division of a table.
  • The verb 'to row' (still rhyming with go, but an unrelated word) means to propel a small boat with oars. (Such boats are often called rowing boats.)
    • (There is a related noun, meaning 'an occasion on which a boat is rowed': "We went for a row on the lake yesterday.")
• When the three letters row rhyme with how and now (IPA: /raʊ/), the noun means 'an argument' or 'disagreement'. There is a related verb 'to row with someone', but it is more usual in modern English to say 'have a row with'. The past tense and past participle of both verbs are written the same, rowed, but pronounced differently. The form to do with rowing boats sounds like rode (IPA: /rəʊd/), the past tense of 'to ride', or road (the noun meaning 'a way from one place to another, with a hard surface for vehicles to travel on'); the other form rhymes with 'loud' (IPA: /laʊd/), and the first syllable of 'rowdy', meaning 'rough and disorderly'.

You may also want to see roe - row about a homophone involving the first of these pronunciations.

OED records several other more or less obscure meanings of the letters row - in all 7 nouns, 2 adjectives, 8 verbs and an adverb. Only specialists need to know these. They should look in OED.