heterography

Distinctions are made between such words using heterography.

The orthography of the English language is, according to Larry Trask, a "spectacular example" of heterography.

In linguistics, heterography is a property of a written language, such that it lacks a 1-to-1 correspondence between the written symbols and the sounds of the spoken language.

The degree of heterography of a language is a factor in how difficult it is for person to learn to read that language, with highly heterographic orthographies being more difficult to learn than more homographic ones.