In a study of lexical ambiguity processing, responses to homographs were examined in a word association task. The context of repeated exposures of a homograph was manipulated by requiring a response to a word related to a meaning of the homograph on the trial prior to homograph presentation. A change of that relationship reduced the effectiveness of the contextual item as a prime on the second occurrence of the homograph. In response to a third unprimed occurrence of the homograph, associations were consistent with a conclusion that when semantic contexts are opposed, a "primacy effect" is obtained. The overall effects in the studies reported are seen as consistent with the theoretical view of Simpson and Kang (1994)that processing and responding to one meaning of a homograph result in the inhibition of alternative meanings. A mechanism to account for that inhibition is proposed.In 1976, Schvaneveldt, Meyer, and Becker demonstrated that the effectiveness of a homograph as a related prime depended on the context that preceded the homograph. When a homograph was preceded by a word that was related to the same meaning as was the subsequent target (e.g., SAVE-BANK-MONEY), responses were faster than responses to homographs preceded by an unrelated word (e.g., DAY-BANK-MONEY). These in turn were faster than responses to triples containing a prime related to the other meaning of the homograph (e.g., RIVER-BANK-MONEY). Subsequently, Onifer and Swinney (1981) reported that homographs embedded in auditory disambiguating sentences primed lexical decisions to visually presented words related to either of the homograph's meanings. However, if the target was delayed for 1.5 sec, only the contextappropriate meaning ofthe homograph was primed. Several theorists have proposed that the selection of one meaning of a homograph leads to the immediate active suppression of alternative meanings (Gernsbacher, 1990;Neill, 1989). Krueger (1990) found that processing the second oftwo sentences containing the same homograph in alternateWe thank Christian DeBiasi, Susan DeGuilio, and Sara Jamshidi, who served as experimenters. Three reviewers of an earlier version of this manuscript, Doug Nelson, Dani McKinney, and Greg Simpson, provided thoughtful ideas that resulted in clarification of the ideas presented. We are grateful to them, as well as to Jim Erickson, for their critical reviews. Correspondence should be addressed to D. S. Gorfein, Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Box 19528, Arlington, TX 76019-0528 (e-mail: gorfein@utarlg.uta.edu).meaning contexts was slower than processing following a control sentence. Simpson and Kang (1994) determined that a homograph that had primed the naming of a word related to one ofits meanings actually slowed performance on a subsequent word related to an alternate meaning. On the basis oftheir extensive review of homograph research, they concluded, "Processing one meaning ofa homograph and responding to that meaning results in the active and specific inhibition of competing meanings" (Simp...