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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. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  8. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  11. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  12. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  13. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  14. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  15. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  16. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  17. Lukas kept the diamonds in a locked ________________.
  18. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  19. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  20. The ceiling is a plaster ________________ painted with stars.
  21. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  22. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  23. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  24. Champaud competed in the parallel bars, ________________, and pommel horse events.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. march — the month
  3. cold — not warm
  4. mine — belonging to me
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. cold — an illness
  7. bat — the animal
  8. squash — to crush
  9. degree — temperature
  10. bat — in an idiom
  11. march — the month
  12. hand — help
  13. squash — the vegetable
  14. squash — the sport
  15. march — music
  16. mine — an explosive
  17. vault — a safe
  18. hand — part of the body
  19. hand — in cards
  20. vault — an arched ceiling
  21. bat — for baseball
  22. mine — for digging
  23. degree — from a university
  24. vault — in gymnastics

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