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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. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  8. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  9. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  10. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  11. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  12. The King held a masked ________________.
  13. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  14. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  15. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  16. How do you ________________ your surname?
  17. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  18. That was a fun ________________.
  19. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  20. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  21. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  22. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  23. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  24. The elephant has a huge ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. content — happy
  3. bore — gave birth
  4. game — wild animals
  5. bore — to tire
  6. degree — an amount
  7. game — a kind of play
  8. ball — a round shape
  9. chest — a box
  10. chest — of your body
  11. trunk — of a car
  12. ball — a dance
  13. bore — to drill
  14. degree — temperature
  15. spell — magic
  16. spell — letters
  17. chest — of your body
  18. game — a match
  19. spell — a short time
  20. content — the amount
  21. ball — a great time
  22. content — videos and posts
  23. trunk — of a tree
  24. trunk — of an elephant

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