Frequency of occurrence and concreteness ratings of homograph meanings

The purpose of this research was to establish norms for the relative frequency of use of the different meaning of common homographs (words that have one spelling but two or more distinctly different meanings) and to present ratings of the concreteness-abstractness of those meanings. A total of 108 subjects wrote a phrase or sentence using each of 120 homographs that were presented at a 15.5-sec rate. For each homograph, norms are provided indicating the relative frequency with which each meaning was used by men and by women. In addition, four judges rated the concreteness-abstractness of each meaning. These ratings are also provided, as are the means of the overall concreteness for each homograph.