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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 124 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. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  5. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  8. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  9. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  10. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  11. False peace will not ________________.
  12. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  13. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  14. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  15. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  16. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. stem — to come from
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. row — a line
  5. last — finally
  6. cold — an illness
  7. stem — of a plant
  8. degree — temperature
  9. row — a quarrel
  10. scale — for weighing
  11. last — to go on
  12. degree — an amount
  13. scale — in music
  14. row — to paddle
  15. last — final
  16. stem — a stem cell
  17. cold — not warm
  18. scale — size or range

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