It is very common in English for one word to have many different meanings This condition where one word has different meanings is known as polysemy This term comes from poly meaning many and sem meaning meaning Sound is one such polysemic word As a noun i

In this set of materials, in the reading passage the polysemic words are introduced and illustrated more by some examples and in the listening passage a special groups of polysemies are discussed.

According to the states in the reading, the words which carriy different meanings as used in different sentences are called polysemy. Two examples of these words are provided in the reading to make them more sensible. The first word would be sound which holds a large number of various meanings as nouns, adjectives, and verbs when accompanied by different words. And the second word mentioned is set which also could have different meanings when it is used as a noun or verb.

In the listening it is declared that there would be some specific group of polysemic words which not only would have distinct meanings when used in various ways but also create opposite meanings. The professor mentions some words of this group such as bolt, fast and sanction. The word bolt could have two contradictory meanings: fastened or not moving like in the sentence “He bolt the door” and moving very quickly like in the sentence “He decided to bolt”. In addition the word sanction have two completely opposite meanings of to permit when we say sanction something and do not permit when it is said put sanction on something.