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Multiple-Meaning Words

A multiple-meaning word is spelled and said the same way but means different things: a bat flies at night, and you hit a ball with a bat. Context is the only clue, which is why these words are such good reading practice.

Here are 120 multiple-meaning words from past ClueBy puzzles, each with a real example sentence for every meaning. Use them as a reference, or make a printable worksheet below.

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Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. I've got to change the light ________________.
  4. He was locked up in a ________________.
  5. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  6. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. The ball is in your ________________.
  10. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  11. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  12. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. The light ________________ burned out.
  16. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. clip — to cut
  3. bulb — for light
  4. cell — in a prison
  5. court — of a king
  6. cell — in biology
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. clip — a video
  9. court — for sport
  10. degree — temperature
  11. cell — a phone
  12. bulb — of a plant
  13. cold — an illness
  14. cold — not warm
  15. bulb — for light
  16. court — of law
  17. clip — for paper
  18. degree — an amount

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

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Frequently asked questions

What are multiple-meaning words?

Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but more than one meaning, like bark (of a dog or of a tree) or bank (for money or of a river). You can only tell which meaning is meant from the rest of the sentence.

Are multiple-meaning words the same as homonyms?

Mostly, yes. Teachers often use "multiple-meaning words" and "homonyms" for the same idea. Homophones are different: they sound alike but are spelled differently, like flour and flower.

Are the worksheets free?

Yes. Make and print as many as you like for home or classroom use. Each sheet has its own link, so you can print the same one again.

Where do the words come from?

From past ClueBy puzzles, a daily game where you sort twelve sentences by their missing word. A new puzzle every day adds four more words to this list.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com