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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 116 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. I haven't touched a tennis ________________ in years.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  8. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  9. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  12. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  15. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. Our cat is sitting in the apple tree, and the birds are making a ________________.
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  19. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  20. He hit the ball with his ________________.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  24. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.

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

Answer key

  1. racket — for tennis
  2. degree — an amount
  3. wax — in the ear
  4. bat — the animal
  5. clip — for paper
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. bat — in an idiom
  8. wax — to grow
  9. degree — from a university
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. wax — for sculpting
  12. scale — in music
  13. clip — to cut
  14. wound — an injury
  15. scale — size or range
  16. clip — a video
  17. racket — a loud noise
  18. degree — temperature
  19. wound — past of 'wind'
  20. racket — for tennis
  21. cold — not warm
  22. cold — an illness
  23. wound — an injury
  24. scale — for weighing

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