>I can't believe that English is unique in this multiple use of words. I would love to see equivalent examples of French, German, Spanish (languages I mimimally understand) as well as the various other languages represented here.

One daughter went for a japanese course in high shool, and another took some online courses, and they tell me the polisemy is also frequent there, though for different reasons - the meanings are not so closely related.

And I haven't posted the link here for a number of years: Ambiguity, thy name is english. Enjoy.