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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. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  3. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  4. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  5. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  6. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  7. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  8. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  9. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  10. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  11. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  12. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  13. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  14. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  15. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  16. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  17. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  18. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. capital — a big letter
  3. capital — a city
  4. wound — an injury
  5. wind — moving air
  6. degree — from a university
  7. pitch — a sports field
  8. wind — to turn a key
  9. wound — an injury
  10. face — to confront
  11. pitch — a sales talk
  12. pitch — completely
  13. face — part of the head
  14. capital — money
  15. wound — past of 'wind'
  16. wind — moving air
  17. degree — temperature
  18. face — to point toward

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