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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. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  3. I have a corn on my right ________________.
  4. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  5. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  6. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  7. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  8. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  9. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  10. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  11. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  12. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. The newcomer sat down at the ________________ of the table.
  15. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  16. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  17. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  18. Heather can grow to a ________________ or so tall.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. face — part of the head
  3. foot — part of the body
  4. clip — to cut
  5. pitch — a sales talk
  6. pitch — completely
  7. row — a quarrel
  8. degree — temperature
  9. row — a line
  10. face — to confront
  11. clip — for paper
  12. face — to point toward
  13. clip — a video
  14. foot — the bottom
  15. degree — from a university
  16. row — to paddle
  17. pitch — a sports field
  18. foot — a measure

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