To arrange with dishes and cutlery, to set the table.

• Please set the table for our guests.

To introduce or describe.

• I’ll tell you what happened, but first let me set the scene.
• An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

To locate (a play, etc.); to assign a backdrop to, geographically or temporally.

• He says he will set his next film in France.
• Her debut novel is set during the U.S. Civil War.

To compile, to make (a puzzle or challenge).

• This crossword was set by Araucaria.

To prepare (a stage or film set).

To fit (someone) up in a situation.

To arrange (type).

• It was a complex page, but he set it quickly.

To devise and assign (work) to.

• The teacher set her students the task of drawing a foot.

ball-gamesgameshobbiesTo direct (the ball) to a teammate for an attack.

To gel; to solidify.

• This glue sets in five minutes.
• This jelly sets within a few hours when refrigerated.

To render stiff or solid; especially, to convert into curd; to curdle.

• to set milk for cheese

Of a heavenly body, to disappear below the horizon of a planet, etc, as the latter rotates.

• The moon sets at eight o'clock tonight.

bridgegamesTo defeat a contract.

obsoleteTo begin to move; to go forth.

• The king is set from London, and the scene is now transported, gentles, to Southampton

biologybotanynatural-sciencesTo produce after pollination.

• to set seed
• Many fruit trees will only flower and set fruit following a cold winter.

To be fixed for growth; to strike root; to begin to germinate or form.

• In the Annapolis Valley, in spite of an irregular bloom, the fruit has set well and has, as yet, been little affected by scab.

dialectalTo sit (be in a seated position).

• He sets in that chair all day.
• Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the stern.

dialectalTo rest or lie somewhere, on something, etc.; to occupy a certain place.

• Well, we rolled up Interstate 44 Like a rocket-sled on rails. We tore up all of our swindle sheets And left 'em settin' on the scales.

To hunt game with the aid of a setter.

hobbieshuntinglifestyleOf a dog, to indicate the position of game.

• The dog sets the bird.
• Your dog sets well.

To apply oneself; to undertake earnestly.

• If he set industriously and sincerely to perform the commands of Christ, he can have no ground of doubting but it shall prove successful to him.

To fit music to words.

• Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.
• That I might sing it (Madam) to a tune: Giue me a Note, your Ladiship can set

To place plants or shoots in the ground; to plant.

• to set pear trees in an orchard
• We saw him with eight men setting potatoes within a week of mid-summer.

To become fixed or rigid; to be fastened.

To have a certain direction of motion; to flow; to move on; to tend.

• The current sets to the north; the tide sets to the windward.

country-dancingdancinghobbiesTo acknowledge a dancing partner by facing them and moving first to one side and then to the other, while they do the opposite.

• Set to partners! was the next instruction from the caller.

To place or fix in a setting.

• to set a precious stone in a border of metal
• to set glass in a sash

To put in order in a particular manner; to prepare.

• to set (that is, to hone) a razor
• to set a saw

To extend and bring into position; to spread.

• to set the sails of a ship

To give a pitch to, as a tune; to start by fixing the keynote.

• […] I ſhould be very vvilling to be his Clerk; for vvhich you knovv I am qualified, being able to read, and to ſet a Pſalm.

To reduce from a dislocated or fractured state.

• to set a broken bone

dialectalTo sit or lie (easily etc.) on the stomach; to be digested in a certain manner.

• If you also knew how to combine foods—that is, what foods eaten together “set well,” you need never have indigestion, constipation or any of the headachy, stomachachy ills they lead to.

businessconstructionmanufacturingTo lower into place and fix solidly, as the blocks of cut stone in a structure.

obsoleteTo wager in gambling; to risk.

• I have set my life upon a cast, / And I will stand the hazard of the die.

To adorn with something infixed or affixed; to stud; to variegate with objects placed here and there.

• High on their heads, with jewels richly set, / Each lady wore a radiant coronet.
• pastoral dales thin set with modern farms

obsoleteTo value; to rate; used with at.

• Be you contented, wearing now the garland, / To have a son set your decrees at naught.
• I do not set my life at a pin's fee.

To establish as a rule; to furnish; to prescribe; to assign.

• to set a good example

To suit; to become.

• It sets him ill.

To cause (a domestic fowl) to sit on eggs to brood.

• To set a hen.

To arrange the casting of a movie.

• Paramount Pictures has set Jennifer Love Hewitt for a movie called Two Can Play This Game.

A young oyster when first attached.

Collectively, the crop of young oysters in any locality.

A series or group of something. (Note the similar meaning in Etymology 4, Noun)

The manner, state, or quality of setting or fitting; fit.

• the set of a coat
• Mr. Joolby lay on the floor beside his special chair, his face doubly terrible in its rigid set, his body writhing this way and that with spasmodic jerks and contortions.

The pattern of a tartan, etc.

The camber of a curved roofing tile.

The full number of eggs set under a hen.

obsoleterareThat which is staked; a wager; hence, a gambling game.

• We will in France, by God's grace, play a set / Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
• That was but civil war, an equal set.

A tool for dressing forged iron.

informalmathematicssciencesSet theory.

A group of people, usually meeting socially or connected through some shared interest, activity, attribute, etc.

• the country set
• That he took perfumed baths is a truth; and he used to say that he took them after meeting certain men of a very low set in hall.

The scenery for a film or play.

the general locations and area where a movie’s, a film’s, or a video’s scenery is arranged to be filmed also including places for actors, assorted crew, director, producers which are typically not filmed.

dancedancinghobbiesThe initial or basic formation of dancers.

exercisehobbieslifestyleA group of repetitions of a single exercise performed one after the other without rest.

• Meronym: reps
• This is the fourth set of benchpresses.

hobbieslifestylesportsA complete series of games, forming part of a match.

ball-gamesgameshobbiesA complete series of points, forming part of a match.

ball-gamesgameshobbiesThe act of directing the ball to a teammate for an attack.

entertainmentlifestylemusicA musical performance by a band, disc jockey, etc., consisting of several musical pieces.

• You heard “oh, Jeremy Corbyn” everywhere: at the silent disco, during Radiohead’s Friday night headlining set, midway through the Other stage appearance by rapper Stormzy, who gamely joined in.

entertainmentlifestylemusicA drum kit, a drum set.

• He plays the set on Saturdays.

educationA class group in a subject where pupils are divided by ability.

• Looking at pupil attainment, the study found that students with the same Key Stage 3 scores could have their GCSE grade raised or lowered by up to half a grade as a result of being placed in a higher or lower set.

slangcard-gamespokerThree of a kind, especially if two cards are in one's hand and the third is on the board. Compare trips (“three of a kind, especially with two cards on the board and one in one's hand”).