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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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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. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  2. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  3. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  4. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  7. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  8. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  9. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  10. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  11. He was locked up in a ________________.
  12. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  13. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  14. That was a fun ________________.
  15. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  19. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  20. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  21. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. hide — to keep secret
  2. hide — animal skin
  3. march — the month
  4. march — the month
  5. cold — not warm
  6. game — a kind of play
  7. degree — an amount
  8. wound — an injury
  9. race — a contest
  10. wound — an injury
  11. cell — in a prison
  12. race — the arms race
  13. wound — past of 'wind'
  14. game — a match
  15. degree — from a university
  16. cold — an illness
  17. hide — to keep secret
  18. degree — temperature
  19. game — wild animals
  20. march — music
  21. cell — a phone
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. race — humankind
  24. cell — in biology

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