Stating that teachers are often confused by the terms "homonym" and "homophone," this paper maintains that the difficulty can be eased by determining how words can be classified in terms of structure, meaning, or sound. It then presents a word nomenclature model that draws upon the differentiation between these groups of words and treats not only homonyms and homophones but also other classes of words such as acronyms, paronyms, and heteronyms. The paper concludes that the model could aid the teacher in dealing with apparent contradictions in basals and in some dictionaries. (Author)