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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. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  2. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  3. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  8. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  15. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  16. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  17. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  18. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  19. The King held a masked ________________.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. When are we going to ________________?
  22. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — temperature
  2. ball — a round shape
  3. wind — moving air
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. wind — moving air
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. shower — to wash
  8. ball — a great time
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. land — a country
  11. bat — the animal
  12. degree — an amount
  13. shower — rain
  14. straw — a straw man
  15. straw — to clutch at straws
  16. wind — to turn a key
  17. land — ground
  18. shower — a meteor shower
  19. ball — a dance
  20. cold — an illness
  21. land — to come down
  22. degree — from a university
  23. cold — not warm
  24. straw — dry grass

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