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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. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  5. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  6. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  7. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  10. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  11. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  12. There's no middle ________________.
  13. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  14. David sat on the ________________.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  17. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  18. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  19. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  20. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  21. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  22. How do you ________________ your surname?
  23. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  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. shower — to wash
  2. ground — crushed
  3. degree — an amount
  4. spell — magic
  5. spring — of water
  6. straw — a straw man
  7. spring — a coil
  8. hand — help
  9. hand — part of the body
  10. ground — the earth
  11. spring — the season
  12. ground — a position
  13. degree — from a university
  14. swing — to play on
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. hand — in cards
  17. spell — a short time
  18. swing — in golf
  19. straw — dry grass
  20. straw — to clutch at straws
  21. shower — rain
  22. spell — letters
  23. swing — music
  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