A word that have more than one meaning

Learning English can be fun. It can be daunting. It can be empowering. It can also be confusing, on occasion. But one thing it definitely isn’t is boring. Even the most fluent English speakers are often surprised when they discover something new about the language: a grammar rule brought to their attention for the first time, a word that they’d never come across before or, even more surprisingly, a familiar word used in an unexpected way! Yes, it is quite common for one English word to have two (or more) completely different meanings.

The way to tell these same-spelling, different-meaning words apart is to pay attention to the context in which they are being used. This will make much more sense when we see these words in action, so let’s look at some examples.

Here is a word that has more than one meaning:

Mine

• as a noun: a place underground from where minerals are extracted
  Peter has been working at a coal mine since April.
• as a possessive pronoun: to show possession
  This is your bag, not mine.

Isn’t that interesting? The same word—mine—is used in both example sentences, but it means two entirely different things in each.

Here is a list of ten other English words with more than one meaning:

1. Interest

• as a noun: wanting to learn or know more about something
  She developed an interest in programming after taking a course in college and now she is a
  professional programmer.
• as a noun: additional money charged on a borrowed sum
  I am paying a high rate of interest on my home loan.
• as a verb: to arouse curiosity or attention
  We built interest in our product by outlining its many benefits on our social media channels.

2. Date

• as a noun: the day of the month or year
  We still haven’t set a date for the ceremony.
• as a verb: to show the age of something
  This food at this restaurant is delicious but the old-fashioned décor really dates it.

3. Engage

• as a verb: to be involved in some work or an activity
  The students hope to engage in a lively discussion with the visiting professor.
• as an adjective: to have formally agreed to marry someone
  The engaged couple shared the good news with their friends and family.

4. Leave

• as a verb: to go away from somewhere
  Ali leaves for Delhi soon.
• as a verb: to remain
  The ink will leave a stain on my shirt.
• as a verb: to deposit or deliver
  The delivery person leaves Sharmila’s parcels with her neighbor.
• as a noun: to be absent from work or duty
  Gunjan is at home on leave today. She will not be attending the meeting.

5. Novel

• as a noun: a prose, fictionalized narrative in the form of a book that often tells a complex
  story with characters and action
  My mother’s novel about three generations of women from a small town has won the National Book Award this year.
• as an adjective: something that is unique and interesting
  I discovered a novel way to spend less money and save more

6. Park

• as a noun: a public garden or area for recreation
  I am taking my children to play in the park today.
• as a verb: to bring a car or vehicle to a stop for a period of time
  We are leaving for the concert now so that we get a good spot to park the car.

7. Play

• as a verb: to engage in an activity or sport
  We are going to play football today.
  My band is playing at the City Club on Saturday. Why don’t you come check us out?
• as a verb: to act in a dramatic production
  I am playing the role of a politician in my next film.
• as a noun: a theatrical production
  Hamlet is my favorite play of all time.

8. Right

• as an adjective: morally fair, good or proper
  The right thing to do now would be to apologize for your mistake.
• as a noun: morally right or just.
  He doesn’t seem to understand the difference between right and wrong.
• as a noun: something one has legal or moral claim to
  As a citizen of this country I have voting rights.
• as a noun: the direction or location of something
  If you look to your right, you will see the Museum of Natural History.

9. Run

• as a verb: to move faster than while walking
  Don’t run down the street, that’s dangerous!
• as a verb: to go somewhere in urgency or distress (not literally “running”, necessarily)
  Even as an adult, I run to my mother with all my problems.
• as a verb: to contend in a race of some kind
  I intend to run for President four years from now.
• as a noun: a continuous spell of a something
  Souvik has a had a run of bad luck this year.

10. Type

• as a noun: a category of things or people that share something in common
  They sell all types of fabric in that store.
• as a verb: to write something on a keypad by pressing keys
  Wow! You type very fast!

Now that’s a lot of different meanings for only a few words, isn’t it? And if you’ll believe it – many of these words can be used in even more ways than the ones listed here. But don’t be overwhelmed, a good online or print dictionary will help you find all the meanings of any English word you might encounter. And the more you read and speak in English, the stronger your vocabulary will become.

Here’s another great idea – to really power up your vocabulary try a Burlington English course! We have expert teachers on hand to guide you with our spoken English training courses that will take your language learning journey to the next level.

Polysemy,
homonyms, synonyms and antonyms.

Plan.

1.
Polysemy and the reasons for existence of polysemantic words.

2.
Homonymy. Types of homonyms.

3.
Synonyms in English.

4.
Definition of antonyms.

1)
The development and change of the semantic structure of English words
is always a source of qualitative and quantitative development of the
vocabulary. Polysemy
is inherent in the very nature of words and notions, as they always
contain a generalization of several traits of the object. Some of
these traits are common with other objects. Hence the possibility of
identical names for objects possessing common features.

One
and the same word may have several meanings. A word that has more
than one meaning is called polysemantic.

Polysemy
is characteristic of most words in many languages however different
they may be. But it is more characteristic of the English vocabulary
as compared with Russian, due to the monosyllabic character of
English and the predominance of root words. The
greater the relative frequency of the word, the greater the number of
elements that constitute its semantic structure, i.e. the more
polysemantic it is.

Polysemy
does not interfere with the communicative function of the language
because in every particular case the situation and the context, i.e.
the environment of the word, cancel all the unnecessary meanings and
make speech unambiguous. We shall deal in detail with various types
of semantic change. The development and change of the semantic
structure of a word is always a source of qualitative and
quantitative development of the vocabulary. In
diachronic (or historical) linguistics, semantic
change
is a change in one of the meanings of a word Every word has a variety
of senses and connotations which can be added, removed, or altered
over time, often to the extent that cognates (cognates
in linguistics are words that have a common origin. They may occur
within a language, such as shirt
and skirt
as two English words descended from the Proto-Indo-European word
*sker-,
meaning «to cut». They may also occur across languages,
e.g. night
and German Nacht
as descendants of Proto-Indo-European *nokt-,
«night». The word cognate
derives from Latin cognatus,
from co
(with)
+gnatus,
natus,
past participle of nasci
«to be born». Literally it means «related by blood,
having a common ancestor, or related by an analogous nature,
character, or function») across space and time have very
different meanings. Semantic change is one of three major processes
to find a designation for a concept. The study of semantic change can
be seen as part of etymology,
onomasiology, semasiology and
semantics.
An example of a recent semantic change is of the word mouse;
with the advent of computer technology, the word for the rodent has
been used as a referent for the input device.

All
the types of semantic change depend on some comparison between the
earlier (whether extinct or still in use) and the new meaning of the
given word. M. Breal was the first to emphasize the fact that in
passing from general usage into some special sphere of communication
a word as a rule undergoes some sort of specialization of its
meaning. When the meaning is specialized, the word can name fewer
objects, i.e. have fewer referents. At the same the content of the
notion is being enriched, as it includes a greater number of relevant
features by which the notion is characterized. Or as St. Ulmann puts
it: “The word is now applicable to more things but tells us less
about them”.

Classification
of semantic change: specification (or narrowing of the meaning),
generalization, metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, litotes, irony,
euphemism (See more about metaphor and metonymy in Antrushina Chapter
7).

Hyperbole
(from
Greek huperballo-
“exceed”)
is an exaggerated statement not meant to be understood literally but
expressing an intensely emotional attitude of the speaker to what he
is speaking about. The emotional tone is due to the illogical
character in which the direct denotative and the contextual emotional
meanings are combined.
Example:

When
people say: “I’ve told you fifty times”,

They
mean to scold and very often do (Byron).

Lytotes
–
is the reverse figure (from Greek litos
–
“plain”, “meager”) or
understatement. It
might be defined as expressing the affirmative by the negation of its
contrary: e.g. not
bad
or not
half bad
for “good”, not
small
for “great”, no
coward
for “brave” and so on. The purpose of understatement is not to
deceive but to produce a stronger impression on the hearer.

Irony
–
this term is taken from rhetoric, i.e. expression of one’ meaning
by words of opposite meaning, especially a simulated adoption of the
opposite point of view for the purpose of ridicule. One of the
meanings of the adjective nice
is
“bad”, “unsatisfactory”, it is marked of f as ironical and
illustrated by the example: You’ve
got us into a nice mess!
The same may be said about the adjective pretty:
A
pretty mess you’ve maid of it!

Euphemism
(Greek
euphemismos
from
eu
“well”
and pheme
“speak”)
is the substitution of words of mild or vague connotations for
expressions rough, unpleasant or for some other reasons
unmentionable.

Causes
of semantic change.
They may be grouped under two main headings, linguistic and extra
linguistic ones. The first group deals with changes due to the
constant interdependence of vocabulary units in language and speech ,
such as differentiation between synonyms, changes taking place in
connection with the ellipsis
(when
the qualifying words of a frequent phrase may be omitted: sale
comes to be used instead of cut-price
sale)
and with fixed contexts, changes resulting from ambiguity in certain
contexts , and some other cases.

The
extra linguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the
language: they are observed in the changes of meaning resulting from
the development of the notion expressed and the thing named and by
the appearance of new notions and things. In other words, extra
linguistic causes of semantic change are connected with the
development of the human mind as it moulds reality to conform to its
needs.

2)
Homonymy.
Many
words, especially characterized by a high frequency rating, are not
connected with meaning by one-to-one relationship. On the contrary,
one symbol as a rule serves to render several different meanings. The
phenomenon may be said to be the reverse of synonymy where several
symbols correspond to one meaning.

Two
or more words, identical in sound and spelling but different in
meaning, distribution and (in many cases) origin are called homonyms.
The
term is derived from Greek (homos
–
“similar” and onoma
–
“name”) and thus expresses the sameness of name combined with the
difference in meaning.

It
is the duty of lexicographers to define the boundaries of each word,
i.e. to differentiate homonyms and to unite variants deciding in each
case whether the different meaning belong o the same polysemantic
word or whether there are grounds to treat them as two or more
separate words
identical in form.

Careful analyses of the
relevant literature (cf. Šipka 1991) evidenced nine central problems
in the research of homonymy, as follows: 1. definition of homonymy.
2. homonymy vs. polysemy. 3. lexical homonymy vs. homonymy at other
levels. 4. classification of homonymy. 5. causes of homonymy. 6.
differentiation of the homonymic lexemes in text. 7. use of homonymy
within the lexicon. 8. language reactions to homonymic conflict. In
this paper we will restrict our discussion to just one of the above
problems — the classification of homonymy.

Homonyms
are words which have the same spelling and pronunciation as each
other but different meanings and origins.  The
sources of homonyms:
1) homonymy through convergent sound development, when two or three
words of different origin accidentally coincide in sound; 2) homonymy
developed form polysemy through divergent sense development. Both may
be combined with loss of endings and other morphological processes.

Homophones
are words which have the same pronunciation as each other but
different spellings and meanings: buy – by, knight –night, steel
– steal, write –right and so on.

Homophones,
are words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings.
They are usually spelled differently:

1.
The wind blew
my blue
shirt into the pool.

2.
Cheryl rode
along as we rowed
the boat from the island to the lakeside road.

3.
I’ve never seen such a beautiful scene.

4.
We want a site for our home that will be out of sight.

5.
The seam in the tent doesn’t seem to hold back the rain.

6.
Due to the dry weather, we do not see any dew on the grass.

7.
I knew they had a new gnu at the zoo.

8.
Some people know that you add to find the sum.

9.
They’re hanging their coats over there.

10.
I ate the eight cakes that were on my plate.

11.
How many ways can I tell him that he weighs too much?

Homographs
are words which are spelt the same as each other but which have a
different pronunciation and meaning (they are different in sound and
in meaning but accidentally identical in spelling): bow [bou] – bow
[bau], lead [li:d] – lead [led], row [rou] – row [rau], wind
[wind] – wind [waind] and many more.

3)
Synonyms
are
different words with identical or at least similar meanings. Words
that are synonyms are said to be synonymous,
and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy.
The word comes from Ancient Greek («syn«)
«with» and (”onoma«)
«name.»
An
example of synonyms is the words car
and automobile.
Similarly, if we talk about a long
time
or an extended
time,
long
and extended
become synonyms.

Synonyms
can be any part of speech (e.g. nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs or
prepositions) as long as both members of the pair are the same part
of speech. More examples of English synonyms are:

baby
and infant
(noun)

student
and pupil
(noun)

buy
and purchase
(verb)

pretty
and attractive
(adjective)

sick
and ill
(adjective)

quickly
and speedily
(adverb)

on
and upon
(preposition)

freedom
and liberty
(noun)

dead
and deceased
(adjective)

In
English many synonyms evolved from a mixture of Norman French and
English words, often with some words associated with the Saxon
countryside («folk»,
«freedom»)
and synonyms with the Norman nobility («people»,
«liberty»).

Some
lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning
(in all contexts or social levels of language) because etymology,
orthography, phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make
them unique. However, many people feel that the synonyms they use are
identical in meaning for all practical purposes, and are
interchangeable. Different words that are similar in meaning usually
differ for a reason: feline
is more formal than cat;
long
and extended
are only synonyms in one usage and not in others, such as a long
arm
and an extended.

There
are different kinds of synonyms: contextual
or context-dependent synonyms, relative synonyms and total synonyms.
Contextual or context-dependent synonyms are
similar in meaning only under some specific distributional
conditions. It may happen when the difference between the meanings of
two words is contextually neutralized. E.g. buy
and
get
would
not generally be taken as synonyms, but they are synonyms in the
following examples: I’ll
go to the shop and buy some bread – I’ll go to the shop and get
some bread.

Relative
synonyms – are
distinguished with respect to different kinds of semantic similarity.
E.g. like-
love – adore; gift –talent –genius. This
attitude is open to discussion. In fact the difference in denotative
meaning is unmistakable: the words name different notions, not
various degrees of the same notion (according to I. Arnold), and
cannot substitute one another.

Total
synonymy, i.e.
synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace each
other in any given context, without a slightest alteration in
denotative or emotional meaning and connotations, is a rare
occurrence. E.g. are found in technical terms and in special
literature. Thus, in linguistics the terms noun
and substantive,
functional
affix, flection or inflection
are identical in meaning.

Sources
of synonymy. Synonymy
has its characteristic patterns in each language. Its peculiar
feature in English is the contrast between simple native words
stylistically neutral, literary words borrowed from French and
learned words of Greco-Latin origin: to
ask – to question – to interrogate; belly – stomach –
abdomen; to gather – to assemble – to collect; to end – to
finish – to complete; to rise – to mount – to ascend.
Euphemisms – also
the source of synonymy: poor
– underprivileged; pregnant – in the family way; drunkenness —
intoxication

Antonyms
are words with opposite or nearly opposite meanings. For example:

dead
and alive

near
and far

war
and peace

increase
and decrease

Antonyms,
from the Greek “anty»opposite») and onoma
(«name») are word pairs that are opposite in meaning such
as hot
and cold,
corpulent
and skinny,
and up
and down.
Words may have different antonyms, depending on the meaning. Both
long
and tall
are antonyms of short.

Antonyms
may be defined as two or rarely more words of the same language
belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and nearly
identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their
denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions.

Unlike
synonyms, antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring
or distribution. They are interchangeable at least in some contexts.

Antonyms
form binary oppositions, the distinctive feature of which is semantic
polarity. Absolute
antonyms
are words regularly contrasted as homogeneous sentence members
connected by copulative, disjunctive or adversative conjunctions, or
identically used in parallel constructions, in certain typical
configurations (typical contexts): love – hate; late — early.
Derivational
antonyms:
known – unknown. (Classification according to I.Arnold).

Another classification:
antonyms are of four types:

Gradable
antonyms
are two ends of the spectrum (slow
and fast)
but can have variations.

Complementary
antonyms
are pairs that express absolute opposites, like mortal
and immortal.

Relational
antonyms
(Converses)
are pairs in which one describes a relationship between two objects
and the other describes the same relationship when the two objects
are reversed, such as parent
and child,
teacher
and student,
or buy
and sell.

Auto-antonyms
are the same words that can mean the opposite of themselves under
different contexts or having separate definitions

Though
the word antonym
was only coined by philologists in the 19^th
century, such relationships are a fundamental part of a language, in
contrast to synonyms which are a result of history and drawing of
fine distinctions, or homonyms, which are mostly etymological
accidents or coincidences. Languages often have ways of creating
antonyms as an easy extension of lexicon. An example is the English
prefixes in-
and un-.
Unreal
is the antonym of real
and indocile
is of docile.

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What are polysemous words? Is it easy to understand someone if they say ‘did you get the bat?’ Polysemy refers to a single word with more than one meaning. The multiple meanings are listed under one entry in a dictionary. An example of polysemy is the word dish. If we took a look at the dictionary we see that dish has multiple definitions, or polysemous meanings, under one entry:

• It’s your turn to wash the dishes = a kind of plate.
• How long does it take to cook this dish? = a meal.

Wing (noun)

The term polysemy, or polysemous words, comes from the Greek words poly and sēma which together mean ‘many signs’. The opposite of polysemy is monosemy. Monosemy is when one word has only one meaning.

Polysemy is related to homonymy (one word that has multiple meanings but is pronounced and/or spelt the same). Additionally, because polysemous words have more than one meaning, they can cause lexical ambiguity. This can happen when someone hears/reads something without the same frame of reference or contextual information as the speaker/writer. For example, ‘Let’s go to the bank!’ isn’t clear. Does this mean ‘a river bank’ or ‘a financial institution’?

1. He has served his time in prison.
2. The free food is served to homeless people only.
3. This old bike has served me well.
4. The new mall will serve the community well.
5. My mom served in the medical corps.

All five sentences use the same verb serve. Although each sentence carries a different sense of serve, they all imply the same meaning of ‘giving service’:

1. He has served his time in prison → spend some time (in prison).
2. The free food is served for homeless people only → provide.
3. This old bike has served me well → be useful.
4. The new mall will serve the community well → provide.
5. My mom serves in the medical corps → work as.

Serve is then a very good example of polysemous words. Some other examples of polysemy include:

• Verb: get — receive, bring, move/travel.
• Noun: bank — of a river/canal, a place to deposit money, a slope.
• Adjective: light — colours, not heavy, not serious.

Polysemy examples in literature

How can we analyse polysemic examples in literature? Take a look at this excerpt from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1623) (Act 5, Scene 3) below and analyze the polysemous meaning of the word gallery:

The word gallery has several different polysemous meanings:

1. A long corridor to exhibit works of art in Elizabethan and Jacobean houses.
2. (In a theatre) the highest of such projecting platforms, containing the cheapest seats.
3. A crypt or a catacomb.

• Refers to a word with multiple meanings.
• Are listed under a single dictionary entry.
• Must stem from the same word class, eg noun-noun: mouse (an animal — computer device), wings (parts of birds for flying — part of a building), beam (a line of light — a piece of wood).

Homonymic words

• Refers to words with different meanings but with the same pronunciation and/or spelling.
• Are listed under multiple dictionary entries.
• Can be verb-noun combination: to address — an address, to rock — a rock, to park — a park.

Polysemy vs. homonymy

What is the difference between polysemic words and homonymy? Take the word address.

First, analyse the multiple meanings and word class. Address has two meanings and two different word classes:

Second, if the words have multiple forms (multiple entries in a dictionary), eg a verb and noun, they are homonyms. If the two words stem from a single form (one entry in a dictionary), eg a verb or noun, they are polysemies. The word address has two word forms: a verb and a noun. This proves that address is a homonym.

To explain the difference between polysemous words and hyponymic expressions, let’s take the word mouse.

Polysemy describes one word with more than one meaning.

Because the word mouse has multiple meanings it can cause lexical ambiguity: «Do you mean the animal mouse or the computer device?» Hyponymy describes a super and subordinate relationship between words.

Through our examples of polysemy, we see that a house mouse and a field mouse aren’t the two different meanings of a mouse. Both types of the singular mouse refer to one thing, the animal.

From the perspective of hyponymy, the mouse that is the computer device isn’t a kind of the animal mouse. It is a mouse (the connotative meaning of mouse = polysemy).

Bring me the mouse!

¹ A. Sabatier, Shakespeare and Visual Culture, (2016).