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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. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  4. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  5. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  6. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  7. False peace will not ________________.
  8. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  9. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  10. When are we going to ________________?
  11. I'll be taking the ________________.
  12. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  15. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  16. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  17. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  18. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  19. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  20. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  21. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. last — final
  2. degree — an amount
  3. bear — the animal
  4. cold — the Cold War
  5. shower — a meteor shower
  6. land — a country
  7. last — to go on
  8. field — farmland
  9. field — a subject
  10. land — to come down
  11. tube — the underground
  12. bear — the animal
  13. degree — temperature
  14. land — ground
  15. shower — to wash
  16. shower — rain
  17. degree — from a university
  18. tube — a container
  19. last — finally
  20. bear — to put up with
  21. tube — in a tire
  22. cold — not warm
  23. field — for sport
  24. cold — an illness

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