Is there a word for words that are uncannily similar?

I may have too broad or subjective of a definition here, so I will try to end with a more specific definition/example -- but if there is a word similar to the definition listed at the end, that may be the right word even if I am off on the definition.

Perhaps that mess is appropriate for how frustrating it is to verbalize this: is there a word/category for words that are uncannily similar?

The very vague and overly subjective description would be "words that are a little too similar." Googling got me as far as uncanny. It feels like a hard thing to Google, which is admittedly as fitting as it is frustrating.

Example of what a definition might look like if there is an objective term rather than a subjective one: Igneous and Ingenious

  1. Same number of syllables
  2. Multiple syllables exhibit similar sounds whether it is a rhyme, off rhyme, assonance, alliteration, etc.
  3. The words share a high number of letters in a similar or identical order
  4. (This probably goes too specific to be useful enough to exist) The words could syntactially be said together, but are very unlikely to make semantic sense

Sample sentence: I am literally looking for a word to classify other words, so the best I can do here is "igneous" and "ingenious" for a sample pair.

Thesaurus: uncanny is as good as I could do

Why it doesn't work: I'm trying to figure out if there is a specific word to classify sets of words

Criteria: similarity in function to the word oxymoron, but for words that bear a striking or uncanny similarity.

Whether a compound word or phrase would be acceptable: yes. But a single word would be a much more fun answer, don't you think?


As a caveat, I am not a linguist. However, paronym seems an uncannily close fit.

Paronyms are words that are pronounced or written in a similar way but which have different lexical meanings.
Wikipedia