Mechanisms are provided for clarifying homophone usage in natural language content. The mechanisms analyze natural language content to identify a homophone instance in the natural language content, the homophone instance being a first term having a first definition and a first pronunciation for which there is a second term having the first pronunciation and a second definition different from the first definition. The mechanisms, in response to identifying the homophone instance, analyze the natural language content to identify a third term that is a synonym for the second term. The third term has a third definition that is nearly the same as the second definition. The mechanisms, in response to the natural language content comprising the third term, perform a clarifying operation to modify the natural language content to clarify the homophone instance and generate a modified natural language content.