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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. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  5. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  6. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  7. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  8. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  9. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  10. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  11. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  12. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  13. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  14. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  15. He was locked up in a ________________.
  16. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  21. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  22. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?

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

Answer key

  1. cap — of ice
  2. content — happy
  3. cold — not warm
  4. degree — temperature
  5. content — videos and posts
  6. shower — a meteor shower
  7. cell — a phone
  8. bore — gave birth
  9. shower — to wash
  10. cell — in biology
  11. cap — a hat
  12. bore — to tire
  13. wind — moving air
  14. shower — rain
  15. cell — in a prison
  16. wind — moving air
  17. cold — an illness
  18. content — the amount
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. bore — to drill
  21. degree — from a university
  22. degree — an amount
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. cap — a lid

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