rues, ruse

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

The answer is simple: rues, ruse are homophones of the English language.

rues
  1. :: noun

    Plural form of rue.

  2. :: verb

    Third-person singular simple present indicative form of rue.

ruse
  1. :: noun

    A crafty stratagem; a subterfuge. See Synonyms at wile.

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").