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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. The giraffe protected her ________________ with great courage.
  3. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  4. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  5. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  6. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  9. He drove in a ________________ with his hammer.
  10. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  11. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  12. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  15. The ________________ went through the wall.
  16. The giraffe did all she could to defend her ________________.
  17. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  18. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  19. She broke her ________________ while washing the dishes.
  20. He had ________________ pain while walking.
  21. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  22. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  23. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  24. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. calf — a young animal
  3. shower — to wash
  4. capital — money
  5. chest — of your body
  6. tear — to rip
  7. degree — temperature
  8. mine — an explosive
  9. nail — for a hammer
  10. mine — belonging to me
  11. chest — of your body
  12. tear — from crying
  13. shower — rain
  14. degree — from a university
  15. nail — for a hammer
  16. calf — a young animal
  17. capital — a big letter
  18. mine — for digging
  19. nail — on a finger
  20. calf — of the leg
  21. capital — a city
  22. tear — from crying
  23. chest — a box
  24. shower — a meteor shower

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