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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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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. I assure you, everything's ________________.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  5. This shop sells ________________ wines and cheeses.
  6. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  7. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  12. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  15. The ________________ market has crashed.
  16. I got a ________________ for parking in the wrong place.
  17. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  18. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  19. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  20. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  21. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  22. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  23. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  24. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. fine — all right
  3. degree — an amount
  4. wake — a trail
  5. fine — high quality
  6. mine — an explosive
  7. straw — to clutch at straws
  8. clip — a video
  9. capital — a city
  10. clip — for paper
  11. wake — before a funeral
  12. capital — a big letter
  13. degree — temperature
  14. straw — a straw man
  15. stock — shares
  16. fine — a penalty
  17. capital — money
  18. mine — belonging to me
  19. mine — for digging
  20. stock — goods
  21. stock — a soup base
  22. straw — dry grass
  23. wake — to stop sleeping
  24. clip — to cut

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