Play. What does a word mean?

Words are interesting when they mean different things. Almost metaphors in themselves.

I just saw in Leif's text his reaction to me saying we are "playing" with Facebook, and how it sounded when he wrote it in English, using the English word for play insetad of the Swedish one “leka”.

To me it became interesting to realize that, as the English word play also is used as the word for a theatre performance, for me that is equal to work. In Swedish the word for play - leka - can both mean childplay and the sexual foreplay that animals do before they mate. So when I use the word PLAY (leka) I might not mean the same thing as it could be superficially interpreted as.



My question to follow: What is the most distinct difference between a metaphore and the meaning of a word