I was posed a question the other day:  

"Can you think of a word that can be used as a Noun, Verb or an Adjective?"

One such word would be "light".

Is there a rule for identifying such words?

(See also: [What word can fulfill the most parts of speech?](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/46277/what-word-can-fulfill-the-most-parts-of-speech))

Along a similar line, is there any rule (or name) for words that could be a Noun, Verb and Adjective (and other parts of speech) depending on the interpretation of a single sentence?

An example of the above that satisfies two out of three could be "This is a *rubbish* pile." i.e. Is it a pile of rubbish, or a poorly constructed pile?

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(Whether [a version of] this question is on topic is discussed [on meta](https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2525/would-this-question-be-on-topic), please close/edit if appropriate.)