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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. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  5. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  6. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  7. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  8. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  9. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  10. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  11. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  12. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  13. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  14. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  15. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  16. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  17. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  18. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  19. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  20. He was locked up in a ________________.
  21. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  22. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  23. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  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. degree — from a university
  2. cell — in biology
  3. degree — an amount
  4. capital — money
  5. wax — in the ear
  6. chip — for betting
  7. file — a line of people
  8. wax — to grow
  9. straw — dry grass
  10. wax — for sculpting
  11. clip — for paper
  12. capital — a city
  13. chip — in a computer
  14. clip — a video
  15. clip — to cut
  16. cell — a phone
  17. file — a document
  18. chip — to eat
  19. capital — a big letter
  20. cell — in a prison
  21. straw — to clutch at straws
  22. file — a tool
  23. straw — a straw man
  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