change." From this use of the word
we have the word _bureaucracy_, by which we describe a government
which is carried on by a great number of officials.

A better example of how a word containing one special idea can extend
its meaning is the word _bend_. This word originally meant to pull the
string of a bow in order to let fly an arrow. The expression "bend a
bow" was used, and as the result of pulling the string was to curve
the wooden part of the arrow, people came in time to think that
"bending the bow" was this making the wood to curve. From this came
our general use of "bend" to mean forcing a thing which is straight
into a curve or angle. We have, of course, also the metaphorical use
of the word, as when we speak of bending our will to another's.

Another word which has had a similar history is _carry_. When this
word was first borrowed from Old French it meant to move something
from place to place in a cart or other wheeled vehicle. The general
word for our modern _carry_ was _bear_, which we still use, but
chiefly in poetry. In time _carry_ came to have its modern general
sense of lifting a thing from one place and removing it to another. A
well-known writer on the history of the English language has suggested
that this came about first through people using the word in this sense
half in fun, just as the word _cart_ is now sometimes used. A person
may say (a little vulgarly), "Do you expect me to cart all these
things to another room?" instead of using the ordinary word carry. If
history were to repeat itself in this case, _cart_ might in time
become the generally used word, and _carry_ in its turn be relegated
to the realm of poetry.

Words often come to have several meanings through being used to
describe things which are connected in some way with the things for
which they were originally used. The word _house_ originally had one
meaning, which it still keeps, but to which several others have been
added. It was a building merely, but came in time to be used to mean
the building and the people living in it. Thus we say one person
"disturbs the whole house." From this sense it got the meaning of a
royal family, and we speak of the House of York, Lancaster, Tudor, or
Stuart. We also use the word in a large sense when we speak of the
"House of Lords" and the "House of Commons," by which we hardly ever
mean the actual buildings known generally as the "Houses of
Parliament," but the members of the two Houses.