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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. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. Have you found your soul ________________?
  3. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  4. That was ________________ to happen.
  5. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  6. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  7. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  8. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  9. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  10. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  11. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  12. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  13. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  14. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  15. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  18. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  21. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  22. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  23. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  24. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. mate — a partner
  3. squash — the vegetable
  4. bound — certain
  5. rule — a law
  6. squash — to crush
  7. bound — obliged
  8. rule — to rule out
  9. field — farmland
  10. shower — to wash
  11. field — for sport
  12. chest — a box
  13. rule — government
  14. squash — the sport
  15. field — a subject
  16. degree — temperature
  17. mate — to breed
  18. chest — of your body
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. mate — a friend
  21. chest — of your body
  22. shower — rain
  23. degree — from a university
  24. bound — tied together

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