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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. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  4. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  5. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  6. When are we going to ________________?
  7. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  8. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  9. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  10. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  11. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  12. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  13. He was locked up in a ________________.
  14. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  15. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  18. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  19. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  20. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  21. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  22. That was a fun ________________.
  23. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  24. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. degree — an amount
  3. game — wild animals
  4. club — for dancing
  5. tear — from crying
  6. land — to come down
  7. capital — a big letter
  8. club — for golf
  9. chest — of your body
  10. capital — a city
  11. cell — in biology
  12. degree — from a university
  13. cell — in a prison
  14. capital — money
  15. club — a group
  16. degree — temperature
  17. land — a country
  18. cell — a phone
  19. tear — to rip
  20. chest — of your body
  21. chest — a box
  22. game — a match
  23. tear — from crying
  24. game — a kind of play

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