Different plural forms / declension of a single word - is it possible?

Question

Is it possible in German that a single word has more than one meaning and different meanings of this word have different plural forms or different declension?

Answer 1

Absolutely. In fact, "das Wort" is just such a word, as it can take two different plural forms with slightly different meanings:

• "die Wörter": meaning "words" in a very concrete sense, the individual elements of text typically delimited by whitespace in writing.
• "die Worte": meaning "words" in a more abstract sense, referring to the statements someone utters.

As another common example, consider "die Mutter":

• "die Mütter" means "the mothers"
• "die Muttern" means "the screw nuts" (i.e. the piece that you put on the end of a screw to fix it in place)