[单项选择]

Text 3
As everyone knows, words constantly take on new meanings. Since they do not necessarily, nor even usually, take the place of the old ones, we should picture this process as the analogy of a tree throwing out new branches which themselves throw out subordinate branches. The new branches sometimes overshadow and kill the old one but by no means always. We shall again and again find the earliest senses of a word flourishing for centuries despite a vast overgrowth of later senses which might be expected to kill them.
When a word has several meanings historical circumstances often make one of them dominantduring a particular period. Thus "station" is now more likely to mean a railway-station than anything else; "speculation" more likely to bear its financial sense than any other. Until this century "plane" had as its dominant meaning "a flat surface" or "a carpenter’s tool to make a surface smooth",
A. only old words take on new meanings
B. a tree throws out new branches as the words pick up hew meanings
C. words obtain new meanings from time to time
D. it is possible for the old words to lose their old senses

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