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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. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  2. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  3. Let us try to swim against the ________________.
  4. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  5. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  6. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  7. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  8. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  11. It's one o'clock ________________.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  17. Wood does not conduct electric ________________.
  18. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  19. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  20. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. Here is a list of ________________ job openings.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.

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

Answer key

  1. file — a line of people
  2. field — farmland
  3. current — of water
  4. degree — an amount
  5. prune — to trim
  6. prune — to trim
  7. sharp — with an edge
  8. file — a document
  9. cold — not warm
  10. degree — from a university
  11. sharp — exactly
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. sharp — clever
  14. field — for sport
  15. file — a tool
  16. straw — a straw man
  17. current — electric
  18. straw — to clutch at straws
  19. straw — dry grass
  20. prune — the fruit
  21. field — a subject
  22. current — happening now
  23. cold — an illness
  24. degree — temperature

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