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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. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  5. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  6. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  7. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  8. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  9. Have you found your soul ________________?
  10. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. He was locked up in a ________________.
  15. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  16. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  17. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  18. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  19. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  20. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  21. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  22. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bass — low music
  2. cold — not warm
  3. degree — an amount
  4. cell — a phone
  5. straw — dry grass
  6. cell — in biology
  7. chip — for betting
  8. chip — to eat
  9. mate — a partner
  10. mate — a friend
  11. cold — an illness
  12. straw — a straw man
  13. degree — temperature
  14. cell — in a prison
  15. content — happy
  16. degree — from a university
  17. content — videos and posts
  18. mate — to breed
  19. chip — in a computer
  20. bass — the instrument
  21. bass — the fish
  22. content — the amount
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. straw — to clutch at straws

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