One of many interesting facts about words we learned in "The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary" by Simon Winchester (2003) is that the most complex word in the language is "set."
This "immense" three-letter word has some 430 senses, requiring a 60,000-word definition spread over 24 pages in the tiny print of the published dictionary.
Even for the OED, a dictionary that gives comprehensive definitions and examples for every "core" word in the English language, this is an insanely long definition.
So what does "set" mean? Check it out:
Join the conversation about this story »