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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 116 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. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  2. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  3. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. How do you ________________ your surname?
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  8. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  9. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  10. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  11. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  12. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  13. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  14. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  18. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spell — magic
  2. degree — temperature
  3. degree — from a university
  4. kid — to tease
  5. spell — letters
  6. degree — an amount
  7. spell — a short time
  8. shower — rain
  9. field — farmland
  10. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  11. tear — from crying
  12. field — for sport
  13. field — a subject
  14. shower — to wash
  15. tear — to rip
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. tear — from crying
  18. kid — child

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