Words with two meanings

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is just for fun.
I notice that in English there are words which have two (or more?) meanings.

For example, resume can mean to start up again or your career details.

At my local pharmacy there was a ‘patient discussion board’.
I made the staff smile by saying that the board was therefore for polite chats only. :wink:

Please add any more such words…

2

There are lots of these in the English language. Go to the park and park your car. Look at that crane crane its neck next to that crane on the construction site. My feet are three feet long.

3

Sanction is one that always resonates with me. Is it threatened punishment or approval?

4

Polish and polish has two meanings (from Poland or a to rub things to make them shiny) based on whether it’s capitalized or not.

5

I sometimes think it’d be far easier to list the very few English words with just one meaning.

  • think: believe or cogitate?
  • far: distant or much?
  • list: a roster, create a roster, or tip a ship?
  • English: language or demonym or billiard cue spin?
  • one: a number, or generic third person singular pronoun?
  • meaning: definition or intent?

With further thinking more of that sentence’s words could make the list.

6

Live and live. Minute and minute. Lead and lead.

7

Right; also, do not forget that we should distinguish between one word with several meanings, or aspects of meaning, and two completely different words that happen to be spelled the same.

8

All languages have those kind of words, but English sure seems to have a lot.
My father used to jokingly complain about the word “Fair”
“It can mean a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities, that something is just, that something is beautiful or that somebody is blond or light skinned (“fair hair”)…”

9

Mean:

  • Intend (I mean to misbehave)
  • Definition (What does it mean?)
  • Miserly or spartan (With the poor and mean and lowly, Lived on earth our Saviour holy)
  • Nasty or spiteful (Quit being so mean to me!)
  • Arithmetic average (As opposed to median or mode)
  • Exceptional (She makes a mean chillli)
  • Method (We will fight by all means available)
  • Wealth (A man of considerable means)

Those last two are probably the same one. This thread is just going to become the dictionary.

10

Uh huh.

11

FTR, I once had to record the record for the best selling record.

12

“Oversight” Two almost contradictory meanings.

13

Still

“Once the bubbling stopped, the still became quite still, and still is.”