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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. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  3. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  6. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  7. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  8. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  9. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  10. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  11. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  12. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  13. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  14. I like lots of butter on my ________________ in the morning.
  15. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  16. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  17. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  18. I would like to propose a ________________ on your birthday.
  19. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  20. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  21. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  22. He was locked up in a ________________.
  23. After the show, she was the ________________ of the town.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. squash — the vegetable
  3. scale — in music
  4. hand — help
  5. spring — the season
  6. scale — for weighing
  7. scale — size or range
  8. cell — a phone
  9. race — a contest
  10. squash — to crush
  11. race — humankind
  12. degree — from a university
  13. race — the arms race
  14. toast — bread
  15. hand — part of the body
  16. hand — in cards
  17. spring — a coil
  18. toast — a drink to someone
  19. degree — temperature
  20. squash — the sport
  21. spring — of water
  22. cell — in a prison
  23. toast — the most admired
  24. cell — in biology

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