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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. How do you ________________ your surname?
  2. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  3. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  4. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  5. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  8. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  12. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  13. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  14. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  15. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  19. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  20. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  21. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  24. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.

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

Answer key

  1. spell — letters
  2. race — a contest
  3. snap — to snap out of it
  4. field — a subject
  5. stem — a stem cell
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. snap — to speak sharply
  8. race — humankind
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. cold — an illness
  11. spell — magic
  12. field — farmland
  13. stem — of a plant
  14. snap — to click
  15. race — the arms race
  16. field — for sport
  17. cold — not warm
  18. degree — temperature
  19. bat — the animal
  20. spell — a short time
  21. stem — to come from
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. degree — an amount
  24. degree — from a university

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