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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. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  6. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  7. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  8. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  9. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  12. Have you settled on a ________________?
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  15. Did you ________________ the meat?
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  19. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  22. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  23. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  24. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — a leader
  2. shower — to wash
  3. degree — an amount
  4. cold — an illness
  5. bore — to drill
  6. degree — from a university
  7. straw — dry grass
  8. shower — rain
  9. date — on the calendar
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. chair — to sit on
  12. date — on the calendar
  13. degree — temperature
  14. bore — to tire
  15. season — to add flavour
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. bore — gave birth
  18. chair — a professorship
  19. season — of the year
  20. cold — not warm
  21. date — the fruit
  22. straw — a straw man
  23. straw — to clutch at straws
  24. season — in sport

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