266
HARD-WORKING WORDS
CHRIS COLE
Newport Beach, California
There are about two million words in the English-language and exactly twenty-six lettes in the
English alphabet . Therefore, the average English word shou ld be less than five letters long, since
there are over eleven million words that can be-spelled witJr five letters. However. in fact the
average length of an English word is around twelve letters.
One possible explanation is that human physiology and the laws of acoustics prevent an
arbitrary combination of letters from being pronounced or understood . However, something else
must be going on, because even if we restrict every word to be an alternation of consonants and
vowels, we need fewer than seven letters to express two million words .
Probably the exp lanation for this redundancy is that English (like all natural languages) was not
engineered; it evolved. Words evolved from earl ier words. If the earlier lex.icons were smaller than
English, and decreasing in size the funher back in time we go, then this goes a long way to explain
the inefficiency of English today.
If we imagine that at some point lost in the mists of prehistory we find a small number of
primitive word fonns, then these word fonns shou ld have left their footprints in the current English
lexicon. One fonn these footprints might take is hard-working words, i.e.• words that function as
many different parts of speech or have many different senses.
For example. the word like functions as eight parts of speech:
noun
verb
adjective
adverb
preposition
conjunction
inteljection
verbal aux.iliary
We may never see its like again
Fruit flies like a banana
People of like tastes agree
The rate is more like 12 percent
Time flies like an arrow
They acted like they were scared
Like. man, that was far out
So loud I like to fell out of bed
The word but functions as seven parts of speech:
conjunction
adverb
inteljection
preposition
It never rains but it pours
He is but a child
But. your hooor, I objectl
I want nothing but my due
267
pronoun
noun
adjective
Nobody but has his fault
The but [halibut] put up a fight
He lived in the but [Scottish for olller1 room
Other words that function as five or more parts of speech include:
after
aught
as
best
better
bully
con
cross
dear
down
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun , preposition
adjective, adverb, noun, pronoun, verb
adverb, conjunction, noun, preposition, pronoun
adjective, adverb, noun, verb, verbal auxiliary
adjective, adverb, noun, verb, verbal auxi~ry
adjective, adverb, inteJjection, noun, erb
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, noun , preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, inteJjection, noun, verb
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
less
adjective, adverb, inteJjection, noun, verb
adjective, adverb, inteJjection, noun, preposition
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, preposition, pronoun
near
off
out
over
plus
adjective, adverb, noun , preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, noun , preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, preposition, verb
round
so
still
that
thwart
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun , pronoun
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, verb
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, pronoun
adjective, adverb, noun , preposition, verb
up
well
what
adjective, adverb, noun, preposition, verb
adjective, adverb, interjection, noun, verb
adjective, adverb, conjunction, noun, pronoun
fast
fore
gUl
.
UI
Another way to measure the work that a word is doing is the number of different homographs
that it has. This is related to the different etymologies and function s of the word ..
In Webster' s Third, the following words have ten or more homographs. In this table and the
next one, Senses refers to the number of senses that the word has, Hom refers to the number of
268
homographs that the word has, Pas refers to the number of parts of speech it functions as. and the
remaining columns contain counts for each part of speech.
word
buck
con
pan
pink
rack
Se nses Hom Pos Noun Verb Adje Adve conj Prep Inte
62
20
46
40
58
13
13
13
13
13
4
5
3
3
2
32
9
30
22
38
28
7
14
14
20
1
2
2
4
1
1
1
•
port
post
flush
frank
g1n
pike
scale
tip
bay
bob
chuck
cog
flag
how
mu ll
peel
plat
race
shag
3
4
4
3
6
30
48
18
3
5
26
22
10
1
10
10
2
3
2
3
2
28
56
31
37
31
4
38
22
7
20
30
23
60
31
18
10
10
10
10
10
2
2
3
4
2
17
14
39
6
9
13
20
23
50
23
10
10
10
10
2
3
3
3
11
9
5
12
10
36
77
59
30
19
12
12
32
95
53
45
51
11
11
11
11
11
11
11
16
37
12
9
20
1
1
16
9
1
2
3
2
1
15
6
1
1
1
1
4
9
2
1
1
Probably the best way to measure a word is the count of the senses or different meanings that
the word has. Of course, when two meanings are different is a matter of judgement. There are two
kinds of lexicographers, splitters and groupers. Splitters tend to assign more meanings to a word;
groupers tend to combine many meanings into one definition . It is interesting to note that the editors
of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries assign hard-working words to groupers. Thus the sense
counts of these words tend to be minimized in Merriam-Webster dictionaries.
In Webster's Third, the following words have 100 or more senses:
Word
break
set
turn
take
run
Senses Hom Pos Noun Verb Ad j e Adve Conj Prep rnte
2 45
223
216
179
178
4
3
3
2
3
2
3
2
2
3
89
85
85
33
74
156
122
131
14 6
97
16
7
269
174
168
146
142
142
2
3
2
6
2
2
3
2
3
2
46
68
45
114
113
128
90
101
22
29
round
138
135
133
133
130
6
5
4
5
6
5
3
4
4
5
4
42
11
104
50
10
92
35
18
26
86
10
24
1
1
16
pass
stick
block
down
lead
129
126
121
121
121
4
6
3
9
6
2
4
3
5
3
49
75
84
24
68
80
48
32
18
49
2
5
30
4
1
close
5
5
4
6
3
4
4
2
3
2
20
55
63
40
56
53
11
52
70
58
40
44
pitch
beat
roll
120
118
114
114
114
slip
head
drive
blo w
double
113
111
108
107
106
8
3
3
3
3
5
4
3
2
4
61
88
40
38
44
48
19
67
69
42
4
4
1
go
hold
light
play
106
106
106
103
102
3
4
6
2
2
2
2
4
2
2
18
27
43
30
50
88
79
17
73
52
102
101
100
100
100
100
3
9
2
5
5
5
3
5
2
5
4
3
47
51
39
14
43
62
53
3
61
12
10
29
strike
cut
draw
line
point
up
shoot
open
stock
flat
drop
stop
well
cover
out
right
top
10
6
55
59
10
1
14
40
9
7
8
4
16
4
45
1
2
17
26
7
33
9
64
14
4
3
So what is the hardest-working word in English? My vote goes to break, with four homographs. 89
noWl senses., 156 verb senses, and an incredible 245 senses overall. Now there's a word!