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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 116 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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Word bank
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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. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  4. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  5. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  6. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  7. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  8. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  9. The ________________ market has crashed.
  10. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  11. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  12. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  13. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  14. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  15. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  16. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  17. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  18. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  19. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  20. There's no middle ________________.
  21. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  22. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  23. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  24. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. stock — a soup base
  2. degree — an amount
  3. wound — an injury
  4. content — happy
  5. degree — temperature
  6. content — the amount
  7. wound — an injury
  8. bark — to shout
  9. stock — shares
  10. march — the month
  11. stock — goods
  12. ground — the earth
  13. ground — crushed
  14. wound — past of 'wind'
  15. degree — from a university
  16. bark — a dog's sound
  17. scale — in music
  18. march — the month
  19. content — videos and posts
  20. ground — a position
  21. bark — of a tree
  22. march — music
  23. scale — for weighing
  24. scale — size or range

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