Many words have multiple meanings (sometimes called senses). The Visual Thesaurus displays meanings as individual circles connected to words. The word pen for example, has six meanings. Five of the meanings for pen are nouns, and one is a verb. For this reason, the circles in the Visual Thesaurus representing meanings are color coded to indicate their different parts of speech. The most common meaning for pen as a noun is "a writing implement with a point from which ink flows." pen can also be used as a verb. When used as a verb, it means "produce a literary work." What is interesting is that the word pen is not in and of itself a noun or a verb. It is the individual meanings of pen that belong to a particular part of speech.
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