Editing Polysemy (section)

===Examples in English===
;
;Man
:# The human species (i.e., man vs. other organisms)
:# Males of the human species (i.e., man vs. woman)
:# Adult males of the human species (i.e., man vs. boy)
:#(As a verb) to operate or constitute a vehicle or machine (To man a ship)
This example shows the specific polysemy where the same word is used at different levels of a [[Taxonomy (general)|taxonomy]].

;Bank
:# [[bank|a financial institution]]
:# the physical building where a financial institution offers services
:# to deposit money or have an account in a bank (e.g. "I bank at the local credit union")
:# a supply of something held in reserve: such as "banking" [[brownie points]]
:# a [[synonym]] for 'rely upon' (e.g. ''"I'm your friend, you can ''bank'' on me"''). It is different, but ''related,'' as it derives from the theme of security initiated by 1.
:'''However:'''  1 is borrowed from Italian ''banco'', a money lender's bench, while a river ''bank'' is a native English word. Today they can be considered [[homonym]]s with ''completely different'' meanings. But originally they were polysemous, since Italian borrowed the word from a Germanic language. The Proto-Germanic cognate for "bank" is *bankiz.<ref>[http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=bank&allowed_in_frame=0 (Etymology on ''etymonline.com'')]: ''Bank'' "earthen incline, edge of a river", c. 1200, probably in Old English but not attested in surviving documents, from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse ''banki'', Old Danish ''banke'' "sandbank," from Proto-Germanic *''bangkon'' "slope," cognate with *bankiz "shelf".</ref> A river bank is typically visually bench-like in its flatness.

According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', the three most polysemous words in [[English language|English]] are [[:wikt:run#English|''run'']], [[:wikt:put#English|''put'']], and [[:wikt:set#English|''set'']], in that order.<ref>[[Simon Winchester]], [https://www.npr.org/2011/05/30/136796448/has-run-run-amok-it-has-645-meanings-so-far “Has 'run' run amok? It has 645 meanings… so far”]. [[NPR]], 30 May 2011.</ref><ref>Brandon Specktor, [https://www.rd.com/article/most-complicated-word-in-english/ “The most complicated word in English is only three letters long”], ''[[Reader's Digest]]'', 9 Nov 2022.</ref>