Homophone is a word which is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning, for example: carat, caret, and carrot. Homophones may be spelled differently, but the term also applies to different words that sound the same and are also spelled identically, such as "rose" (flower) and "rose" (past tense of "rise"). However the more precise term for the latter class of words is homonym. The term may also be used to apply to units shorter than words, such as letters or group of letters which are pronounced the same as another letter or group of letters.