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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 120 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 soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  3. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  4. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  5. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  6. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  7. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  8. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  9. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  12. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  13. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  18. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  19. That must've been a ________________.
  20. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  21. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  22. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  23. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  24. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. drill — army training
  3. kid — child
  4. rush — to hurry
  5. wax — for sculpting
  6. rush — hurry
  7. stem — of a plant
  8. drill — a practice
  9. kid — to tease
  10. file — a document
  11. wax — to grow
  12. stem — to come from
  13. tear — from crying
  14. file — a tool
  15. stem — a stem cell
  16. tear — from crying
  17. tear — to rip
  18. file — a line of people
  19. rush — a thrill
  20. degree — from a university
  21. drill — the tool
  22. degree — temperature
  23. wax — in the ear
  24. kid — young goat (kid gloves)

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