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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. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  2. The ________________ took off on time.
  3. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  4. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  5. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  6. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  11. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  12. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  13. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  14. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  15. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  20. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  21. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  22. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chest — of your body
  2. plane — an aircraft
  3. file — a document
  4. drill — the tool
  5. file — a tool
  6. file — a line of people
  7. degree — temperature
  8. chest — a box
  9. cold — an illness
  10. plane — in geometry
  11. degree — an amount
  12. degree — from a university
  13. spring — the season
  14. plane — a tool
  15. wake — before a funeral
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. drill — army training
  18. spring — a coil
  19. wake — a trail
  20. drill — a practice
  21. wake — to stop sleeping
  22. chest — of your body
  23. cold — not warm
  24. spring — of water

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