The word set is said to hold more distinct meanings than any other English word, with hundreds listed.

The longer version

A three-letter word from Old English settan accumulated senses the way a port accumulates cargo: to place, to fix, to harden, to sink below the horizon, a group of objects, a stage backdrop, a tennis unit. Because the spelling was short and the verb was already general, each new activity borrowed it rather than inventing a term.

Run, take and put are close rivals, and lexicographers disagree about the winner because counting depends on where one sense stops and another begins. Splitting homographs into separate entries changes the totals, as does deciding whether an idiom deserves its own sense. The record is therefore as much a statement about method as about the word.

Where this entry sits

This category gathers small surprises about the English language, from odd spelling rules to words that quietly hide their own history. Expect palindromes, punctuation oddities, borrowed terms, and the strange ways writing systems record spoken speech. The full list sits on the Words and Language page, where every entry is listed in order.