“It is a feature of our more sort of energetic and frantic times that set and put seem, in a peculiar way, sort of rather stodgy, rather conservative,” Gilliver told NPR in an interview. He believes the widespread use of run-and its intricate web of meanings-is also a reflection of our times. Winchester thinks this evolution is partly due to advancements in technology (for instance, “a train runs on tracks” and “an iPad runs apps”). However, the word put later outpaced it, and run eventually overtook them both as the English language's most complex word. When the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was published in 1928, the word with the most definitions was set. “But no such luck: that is merely sense I.1a, and there are miles to go before the reader of this particular entry may sleep.” “You might think this word simply means ‘to go with quick steps on alternate feet, never having both or (in the case of many animals) all feet on the ground at the same time,’” Winchester writes. Peter Gilliver, a lexicographer and associate editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, spent nine months sussing out its many shades of meaning. As a verb, it boasts a record-setting 645 definitions. My advice is to give up!”)Īs author Simon Winchester wrote for The New York Times, there’s one English word in particular that’s deceptively simple: run. (For a sample: “Hiccough has the sound of cup. For evidence of the many nuances and inconsistencies of the English tongue, look no further than this tricky poem penned in 1920. To use just one example, there are at least eight different ways of expressing events in the future, and conditional tenses are another matter entirely. English can be hard for other language speakers to learn.

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