The words hock, hough sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Why do hock, hough sound the same even though they are completely different words?
The answer is simple: hock, hough are homophones of the English language.
The tarsal joint of the hind leg of a digitigrade quadruped, such as a horse, corresponding to the human ankle but bending in the opposite direction.
A joint in the leg of a domestic fowl similar to the hock of a quadruped.
A small cut of meat, especially ham, from the front or hind leg directly above the foot.
To disable by cutting the tendons of the hock; hamstring.
the hollow behind the knee
To hamstring
Archaic spelling of hoe.
Archaic spelling of hoe.
Definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition, from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License and Wordnik.
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").