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I passed by a place this evening called "Fancy Nails" that caused me to wonder how common are words that are three or more parts of speech.
Can you name some others?
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Cross (rather obvious, from a vicar, wouldn't you say?)
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formerly known as etaoin...
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ooh, i fgot one (i think!)
present
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at 
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I'm bottoming out here on run. I can't get past noun and verb.
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In reply to:
'm bottoming out here on run. I can't get past noun and verb.
Neither can I. I'm also stuck on two for "spy"
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Pooh-Bah
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From http://www.m-w.comMain Entry: 3 run
Function: adjective
Date: 1774
1 a : being in a melted state <run butter> b : made from molten material : cast in a mold <run metal>
2 of fish : having made a migration or spawning run <a fresh run salmon>
3 : exhausted or winded from running
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Pooh-Bah
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Head
Many swear words can be used as multiple parts of speech, such as s--t, which can be a verb, a noun, or an interjection. You might say that their use as interjections gives oaths a leg up on other words, so satisfying three parts of speech isn't too impressive. Merriam Webster lists four parts of speech for damn (noun, verb, adverb, and adjective). In the film "Blue Velvet," Dennis Hopper's character utters a sentence comprised almost entirely of the word "f--k" and its variations.
Getting out of the gutter, "book" can be an adjective (book learning), or a verb (we booked 2 tickets for the play, or when we heard the cops coming we knew it was time to book out of there ), in addition to a noun.
Merriam-Webster even lists a verb form of "word." (transitive senses : to express in words). Adding this arachaic verb form with the slang use of "word" as an interjection conveying agreement and/or approval, along with the common noun form, and you get three parts of speech.
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Pooh-Bah
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Proper which also had recent use as a slang interjection conveying approval, is given definitions in M-W as noun, adjective, and adverb. A use I think of as common (virtuous) is described as archaic. The noun form is defined as 1 : the parts of the Mass that vary according to the liturgical calendar 2 : the part of a missal or breviary containing the proper of the Mass and the offices proper to the holy days of the liturgical year. The abverb form is a stretch, defined as (chiefly dialect) : in a thorough manner : COMPLETELY.
Mean is a verb (he means to win) or an adjective (that mean old lady next door), and in mathematics it is a noun.
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prep.
adv., conj. or pronoun (= that!)
(and you could make the case for noun (Laotian money) but I won't)
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Adverb? Example please?
and I don't think pronoun (= that!) counts
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Pooh-Bah
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Many color words, such as blue, can be used as a noun, a verb and an adjective, although the verb sense of most of them merely means either to make something that particular color or to describe something taking on that color. e.g. The newspaper yellowed with age, or The metal on the rifle was blued. The adjective forms of color words take on more interesting meanings in addition to simply describing an object of a particular color. He was in a blue mood. He was green with envy.
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adv., conj. or pronoun (= that!)
OED lists all of these uses of at (= that) as obsolete or dialect and gives plentiful examples from centuries past. How's at?
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Pooh-Bah
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addict
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Oh, I think I did mess up here. I was thinking in terms of 'spy' as an independent adjective as in 'spy glass', 'spy fiction', and 'spy story'--but, in having looked up the terms on Onelook.com, I see that these are nouns unto themselves. But, then again, if I were to characterize a person as wearing an enormous coat, one large enough to weather any storm, a virtual spy coat--wouldn't you visualize Columbo (or Colombo, or whoever that person was I never did see except in commercials (I swear)?
Anyway, I back out on 'spy' as an adjective since apparently no dictionary will back me up.
However, I would like to point out [I thought of this driving to work early this morning] that 'ing' verbs give us a huge selection of v/n/a conformations through participles and gerunds, as in:
I am swimming;
Swimming is my favorite morning activity;
Elise, the swimming champion, truly displayed more humility than anyone else in the room.
And the list of 'ing' words, (v./a./n.-gerunds) is perhaps endless if we go about verbing and nouning anything we can think of doing, from oohing to ahing.
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OK, so why not raise the bar - from three to four?
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Perhaps down. It's a preposition--Take this book down the road; it could be a verb as in 'You down that drink and I'll down mine'; the sun goes down (adverb); then an adjective in 'down payment'; a noun in the feathers on a duck--how many is that? Five? That just leaves interjection, conjunction and adverb...hmmm...Put that down! That's an adverb and that makes six. And if you said to a dog, "Down!" wouldn't that be an interjection? That's seven. And I suppose 'down' as a conjunction would be impossible for even me with my flexible thinking to contrive.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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et'! Jackie's gonna get you fershure! Unless she's completely forgotten her G.P. days.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Pooh-Bah
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not to mention the chopped liver patrol
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chopped liver
what? where? I checked! twice!
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what? where? I checked! twice!In Alex's own post. He was a little more subtle. 
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