Each language have some words with a giant quantity of meanings. I personally don't feel like such words are convenient for foreigners because many meanings are rather far from the original root and can be confusing.

And yes, In English there is a mechanism of adding prepositions after the known verb to obtain new meaning. Set up, set in, set off, set out etc. etc. The Russian equivalent is adding prefix so technically you get a new word, but the effect is the same. It ends up with many small words in English sentence vs few bigger words in Russian sentence.

With the same example as of LXNDR:
ставить - to set, to put, to position
отставить - to put off, to recover,
заставить - to force, to make smb. do smth., to fill some space with some objects
выставить - to set out, to kick out
обставить - to furnish (a room), to outplay
доставить - to deliver, to afford some positive feeling to smb.
etc. etc.

Does that help or confuse?