Straight Dope Message Board

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by Darth Panda

Uh, you forgot the best one.

I think that's related to definition #1 or #6, though, so I didn't count it as a separate etymology/completely different meaning.

[Peter Morris]

Dis

1) lady, woman, or fertility goddess in Norse mythology.

2) to treat with contempt; to disrespect.

3) plural of di, a musical tone in between do and re.

4) plural of Di, a female given name.

5) abbreviation for distance or distant.

6) abbreviation for distribute.

7) abbreviation for disease.

8) abbreviation for disability.

I'm not counting the Roman god of the underworld as a definition. Nor the Disney channel trademark. Nor the prefix dis- since it isn't a word in its own right.

[pulykamell]

Actually, now I'm wondering if the OP could clarify whether we're looking for words that are homonyms (same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning/etymology) or heteronyms (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning/etymology.)

[Noel Prosequi]

I found 30 meanings for "jack". While some may be related, there is a world of difference between car jack and apple jack.

[Hyperelastic]

Originally Posted by pulykamell

Actually, now I'm wondering if the OP could clarify whether we're looking for words that are homonyms (same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning/etymology) or heteronyms (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning/etymology.)

Homonyms, but ones in which the meanings are reasonably distinct. By heteronym, I assume you mean something like entrance (a place where one may enter) or entrance (to exert a weird kind of influence over).

[Polycarp]

Lay is, erm, a fertile field for this: Past tense of lie in the "to recline" meaning; to place; to seduce successfully; girl evaluated on her sexual performance (whaddaya mean, chauvinist? ); long probably-narrative poem....

Something I encountered by a fluke was, well, fluke:

1. A trematode parasitic worm
2. One lobe of the horizontal tail 'fin' of a whale or porpoise
3. An improbable coincidence, one that could not be foreseen

[pulykamell]

Originally Posted by Hyperelastic

Homonyms, but ones in which the meanings are reasonably distinct. By heteronym, I assume you mean something like entrance (a place where one may enter) or entrance (to exert a weird kind of influence over).

Yes, or like the "dis" example before. A true homonym, by strict definition, has distinct meanings and distinct etymologies. A lot of the words mentioned here are strictly polysemes--words with the same pronunciation (and often same spelling), but with different, but related, meanings.

Actually, Wikipedia has a good run down of all the different terms:

A distinction is sometimes made between "true" homonyms, which are unrelated in origin, such as skate (glide on ice) and skate (the fish), and polysemous homonyms, or polysemes, which have a shared origin, such as mouth (of a river) and mouth (of an animal).

[barbitu8]

Cleave.
1. To adhere closely; stick; cling.
2. To remain faithful.
3. To split or divide by or as if by a cutting blow, especially along a natural line of division, as the grain of wood.
4. To make by or as if by cutting.
5. To penetrate or pass through (air, water, etc.).
6. To cut off; sever.
7. To part or split, especially along a natural line of division.
8. To penetrate or advance by or as if by cutting.

Note that definition (1) is an antonymn for (3), (6), and (7).

[orborborb]

The most impressive I've found is "bolt"



a bar that locks a door

a screw that attaches things

a part of a gun that isn't obviously similar to either of those things

ammunition for a crossbow

a startled sprint

a lightning bolt

a bolt of cloth

to eat food quickly

for a plant to grow tall quickly

and, archaically, to pass something through a sieve

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by orborborb

The most impressive I've found is "bolt"
a bar that locks a door
[...]
a part of a gun that isn't obviously similar to either of those things

I'm pretty sure rifle bolts are called that because their mechanism is just like the door mechanism.

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by Chronos

For the OP, one that almost qualifies is "bit". I don't think that "past tense of bite" and "a small piece" are related to each other...

As hibernicus surmised (five years ago), they are in fact related. Both senses come from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning "to split," which morphed into a Germanic word meaning "a small piece; a bite (of something)." John Ciardi, in A Second Browser's Dictionary, contends that the "small piece" meaning came first, then was applied to the act of creating a small piece with one's teeth; but the the Online Etymological Dictionary seems to keep open the possibility that the verb goes back earlier.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

I'm pretty sure rifle bolts are called that because their mechanism is just like the door mechanism.

Yeah, most of the various meanings of bolt are related. The original sense was a crossbow bolt. From there it evolved to mean rods of various types, including a door bolt, nut and bolt, and breech bolt. A lightning bolt is like an arrow from the sky, and when a horse bolts it starts suddenly and moves quickly like an arrow. Even a rolled up bit of cloth looks like a rod.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?...wed_in_frame=0
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?...wed_in_frame=0

I don't know if passing through a sieve is related.

[septimus]

I also enjoy clicking on the online etymological dictionary. For example, from OP:

Originally Posted by Hyperelastic

The word "band" has at least three distinct meanings:
1. A group of people engaged in a cooperative pursuit, such as a musical group or a band of thieves.
2. A strap or belt intended to carry a tension load
3. A frequency interval

All three of these meanings, along with such English words as bandage, bend, bind and bond, derive from Proto-Germanic *bindan, from PIE *bendh- "to bind". (Some entered English via Old Norse, some via Old English, some via Old French or Middle French, but they all derive ultimately from bindan.)

[Ludovic]

Only one of these is an English non-proper noun, but still, it's six letters long!

Batman:
-- Servant, chiefly to a British military officer, from "bat" from the French for "packsaddle"
-- Fictional character resembling a bat, from the Norse for "nightflapper"
-- A Turkish unit of weight.

[Amateur Barbarian]

dog:

1. canine
2. latch or lock on a ship's hatch
3. to persistently follow someone
4. (slang) to put in a weak effort at something
5. sausage

And twenty or so others, as James Thurber once pointed out.

[Enola Straight]

Lather
1. The fine, soapy foam used for shaving your face.
2. The operator of a lathe.
3. One who installs laths.
https://swanbarnfarm.files.wordpress.../the-laths.jpg

[JKellyMap]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

Only one of these is an English non-proper noun, but still, it's six letters long!

Batman:
-- Servant, chiefly to a British military officer, from "bat" from the French for "packsaddle"
-- Fictional character resembling a bat, from the Norse for "nightflapper"
-- A Turkish unit of weight.

--the city in Turkey

(You probably knew that, but didn't want to add another proper name).

[Sangahyando]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

Only one of these is an English non-proper noun, but still, it's six letters long!

Batman:
-- Servant, chiefly to a British military officer, from "bat" from the French for "packsaddle"
-- Fictional character resembling a bat, from the Norse for "nightflapper"
-- A Turkish unit of weight.

Originally Posted by JKellyMap

--the city in Turkey

(You probably knew that, but didn't want to add another proper name).

There's also a district of Melbourne, Australia, called Batman -- after John Batman, generally regarded as Melbourne's founder.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-e...016/guide/batm

[Sangahyando]

One which I like, is "shag": has fewer meanings than a fair number of words in this thread -- but I find the sheer variety, impressive.


1) a bird, of the cormorant family

2) a carpet or rug with deep pile

3) a dance

4) a kind of coarse tobacco

5) -- noun and verb -- vulgar synonym for copulation

6) verb: hang down in a shaggy manner

7) verb (colloquial) to depart, or wander around

Plus, at my school (in England), "shag" also meant -- noun / verb -- idleness / shirking, or being in a state thereof: a document excusing one from sport / physical training because of being unwell, was called a "shag slip"; but I've never come across this use of the word elsewhere -- maybe peculiar to that school.

[Dervorin]

I remember reading a book by Gerald Durrell (How to Shoot an Amateur Naturalist), where he mentioned that the word "shoot" has many meanings, including:

- To use a gun or crossbow, or other projectile weapon
- To move forward rapidly and suddenly (obviously related to the above, though)
- To score a point in various games
- A plant stem
- To make a movie
- Direct a glance or question at someone
- A rapid in a stream

[GrizzRich]

My sixth-grade teacher used to assign a punishment that was akin to writing a specific sentence a great number of times.
Her version was to copy the dictionary's several definitions of the word "RUN".

[Bones Daley]

Originally Posted by Enola Straight

Lather
1. The fine, soapy foam used for shaving your face.
2. The operator of a lathe.
3. One who installs laths.
https://swanbarnfarm.files.wordpress.../the-laths.jpg

1 and 3 are fine, but nobody has ever, anywhere, referred to a lathe operator as a lather.

Or rather, if anybody has, they were using their own made-up word, and were unaware that a lathe operator is universally referred to as a turner.

[Enola Straight]

[glowacks]

Racket

A tennis implement
Something noisy
An extortion scheme

Google gives the latter two as part of the same definition, but has no real etymology for either of them, so I'm going to declare that they are unrelated.

[glowacks]

Originally Posted by Polycarp

Lay is, erm, a fertile field for this: Past tense of lie in the "to recline" meaning; to place; to seduce successfully; girl evaluated on her sexual performance (whaddaya mean, chauvinist? ); long probably-narrative poem....

I know this is years later, but you missed one: "not ordained". I also think lie and lay come from the same root if you go back enough, making all of those but the last really from the same root.

[Little Nemo]

Fire:

1. A physical phenomenon which generates heat through the combustion of matter.
2. To remove somebody from their job.
3. To set off a gun.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Fire:

1. A physical phenomenon which generates heat through the combustion of matter.
2. To remove somebody from their job.
3. To set off a gun.

No 1 and 3 are certainly connected meanings. No 2 probably is connected.

[Leo Bloom]

Originally Posted by Enola Straight

Lather
1. The fine, soapy foam used for shaving your face.
2. The operator of a lathe.
3. One who installs laths.
https://swanbarnfarm.files.wordpress.../the-laths.jpg

For example, http://www.placematters.net/sites/de...ode_1323_1.jpg. I lived across the street from this building, and for years mentally pronounced it as shaving cream as I passed it going to work.

Originally Posted by Bones Daley

1 and 3 are fine, but nobody has ever, anywhere, referred to a lathe operator as a lather.

Or rather, if anybody has, they were using their own made-up word, and were unaware that a lathe operator is universally referred to as a turner.

See above photo. Self-identified for collective identification to the whole world. Although established in 1897, so perhaps it remains a la Colored People, who also have a national association.


It really bothered me. That and "sundried tomatoes," which obnoxiously has no hyphen, and again, for years mentally pronounced the way it looks. To me.

[glowacks]

Peer

to look at
someone of equal rank
someone who pees

Ok, that last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think it's a valid formation.

[boffking]

Originally Posted by pulykamell

Rack has good number of distinct etymologies:

1. Framework of bars - from Middle Dutch rac, rec, recke
2. Ruin or destruction; wrack - from Middle English wrak
3. A horse's gait - origin unknown, possible from rock, or from French racquassure
4. A group of drifting clouds, from Middle English rak, reck(e); also possibly from Old English racu, "cloud"
5. To draw off from the lees (like in beermaking or winemaking), from Old French, compare to raqué
6. The neck portion of mutton, goat, or veal - origin unknown

Rack has two more meanings, although I do not know the etymologies.
7. A cabinet for computer network hardware.
8. To accumulate. As in, racking up bills.

[Chronos]

#7 there isn't a different meaning-- It's just another application of #1. I don't know about #8.

[AHunter3]

Post:

• A stake or pole embedded in the ground, such as you'd tie ponies to

• An assignment or job or responsibility at which one is deployed

• The kind of earring you should switch to if you're wearing hoops and about to visit your friend and friend's 1-month-old baby

• A type of trot that your show pony may be asked to engage in, presumably when no longer tied to a post

• The stuff in envelopes with postage stamps affixed to it and stuff

• This here item which you're currently looking at


... and by the way, it's a total pain in the ass to search this page to see if anyone had done "post" yet...

[Bones Daley]

Originally Posted by Leo Bloom

For example, http://www.placematters.net/sites/de...ode_1323_1.jpg. I lived across the street from this building, and for years mentally pronounced it as shaving cream as I passed it going to work.


See above photo. Self-identified for collective identification to the whole world. Although established in 1897, so perhaps it remains a la Colored People, who also have a national association.

.

Uhhh ... that sign, which proclaims the "Metallic Lathers Union", has nothing whatsoever to do with lathe operators. It has everything to do with the men who install metal LATH.

LATH / LATHE ... two totally different and unrelated words.

LATH (rhymes with "path") refers to the reinforcing substrate , which can be of wood or metal, onto which plaster or cement is applied. The person who install the lath is called a "lather" , which is pronounced with the "th" sounding the same as the "th" in "path", rather than the "th" in the foamy shaving cream.

A LATHE (rhymes with "faith" ) is a machine which can be used to produce round workpieces, and the person who operates it is called a turner.

I trust all is now clear.

[Bones Daley]

I would propose ""tick" as a genuine 3 unrelated meanings word

1. v-shaped mark ..."he ticks all the boxes"
2. repulsive blood-sucking parasite
3. noise made by mechanical clock as it "ticks" away the hours.

[Sangahyando]

Originally Posted by Bones Daley

I would propose ""tick" as a genuine 3 unrelated meanings word

1. v-shaped mark ..."he ticks all the boxes"
2. repulsive blood-sucking parasite
3. noise made by mechanical clock as it "ticks" away the hours.

With a possible fourth -- rather old-fashioned British slang: an annoying person (generally male), of dubious moral character, but basically insignificant.

[Peter Morris]

Originally Posted by Bones Daley

I would propose ""tick" as a genuine 3 unrelated meanings word

1. v-shaped mark ..."he ticks all the boxes"
2. repulsive blood-sucking parasite
3. noise made by mechanical clock as it "ticks" away the hours.

Not quite, no 1 and 3 are related, from a word meaning light touch or pat. The sense of annoy, as in ticking someone off is also related.

However, there is another meaning: credit, as in "bought on tick" which is unrelated. So tick does have three unrelated meanings.

[Chronos]

Quoth AHunter3:

• A stake or pole embedded in the ground, such as you'd tie ponies to
...
• The kind of earring you should switch to if you're wearing hoops and about to visit your friend and friend's 1-month-old baby

A stake or pole embedded in your earlobe is not a distinct meaning from one embedded in the ground. And I suspect that the "assigned station" and "contribution to a message board" meanings are also related, the first via the hitching post and the second via the pins used to attach them to the cork.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by glowacks

Peer

to look at
someone of equal rank
someone who pees

Ok, that last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think it's a valid formation.

Also, a lord of the highest rank ('he's an earl, a hereditary peer'). Though related to #2.

[Malthus]

What about "gin"?

- an alcoholic drink

- a form of card game

- a type of machine ("cotton gin")

[boffking]

How about doctor?
-PHD Graduate
-Medical Professional
-To edit in a misleading manner (A doctored photo)

[LateComer]

Pitch:
quality of sound
slope
grassy playing field
to throw
black tar-like substance
to join (pitch-in)
talk to try to convince someone (sales pitch)

I'm sure some of these are related somehow (like sound/slope going up or down).

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by boffking

How about doctor?
-PHD Graduate
-Medical Professional
-To edit in a misleading manner (A doctored photo)

I think they are all related, though. To "doctor" a photo = to "treat" it, like a physician treats a patient. PhD and MD are titles of the same academic rank, sharing a common ancestor.

[RickJay]

Originally Posted by Malthus

What about "gin"?

- an alcoholic drink

- a form of card game

- a type of machine ("cotton gin")

Actually this is a winner if you substitute "card game" with one of "Gin"'s other definitions.

"Gin" in the sense of a machine, like a cotton gin, is an abbreviation of the word "engine."

"Gin" in the sense of the drink is from the Dutch for "juniper," from which it is made. This is also the origin of the name of the card game, though.

"Gin" in the sense of "to excite or enliven" comes from ginger, which is one goes far back enough is derived from very old words for "Root."

All three came to be "gin" from totally different etymologies.

[Malthus]

Originally Posted by RickJay

Actually this is a winner if you substitute "card game" with one of "Gin"'s other definitions.

"Gin" in the sense of a machine, like a cotton gin, is an abbreviation of the word "engine."

"Gin" in the sense of the drink is from the Dutch for "juniper," from which it is made. This is also the origin of the name of the card game, though.

"Gin" in the sense of "to excite or enliven" comes from ginger, which is one goes far back enough is derived from very old words for "Root."

All three came to be "gin" from totally different etymologies.

Interesting. I had no idea the card game and the drink were related.

[Peter Morris]

Also an archaic form of begin.

[Quercus]

Originally Posted by LateComer

Pitch:
quality of sound
slope
grassy playing field
to throw
black tar-like substance
to join (pitch-in)
talk to try to convince someone (sales pitch)

I'm sure some of these are related somehow (like sound/slope going up or down).

Nice try, but the 'Word Origin' section at the link makes it clear these are all from two Middle English sources; one is the tar-like stuff, the other meaning 'thrust or throw' (which also turned into to a field, a slope, joining, and in a way not explained there, musical sound).
I don't know, maybe, despite having a common origin, a musical pitch is different enough from a baseball/soccer/sales pitch that is' an unrelated meaning by now.

[dtilque]

Originally Posted by Peter Morris

Not quite, no 1 and 3 are related, from a word meaning light touch or pat. The sense of annoy, as in ticking someone off is also related.

However, there is another meaning: credit, as in "bought on tick" which is unrelated. So tick does have three unrelated meanings.

There's a 4th meaning which is also unrelated. The fabric case of a pillow or mattress is also called tick

[Malthus]

How about "base".

1. One set of meanings: the lower part of something, on which it rests. The base of a statue. Extended meaning: situated as the center of operations (an "army base").

2. Another set: in chemistry, as opposed to "acid".

3. Third set: showing a lack of decency. "they were nothing more than a base rabble"

I suspect they are all descended from an original root meaning of "low", but I think they have diverged enough to count ...

[aceplace57]

Quite A very odd word with three meanings.


Little noise, soundless
The new central air is so quiet.

completely, wholly, or entirely:
quite the reverse; not quite finished.

actually, really, or truly:
quite a sudden change.

[Chronos]

That's two words with two meanings.