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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 124 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. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  4. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  10. A ________________ is a veil over the lips.
  11. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  12. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  13. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  14. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  15. Is it always a sin to tell a ________________?
  16. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  17. The hunter does not ________________ down with the prey.
  18. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  19. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  20. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  21. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  22. False peace will not ________________.
  23. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  24. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — temperature
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. last — final
  4. race — a contest
  5. cold — an illness
  6. cold — not warm
  7. clip — a video
  8. clip — for paper
  9. straw — dry grass
  10. lie — an untruth
  11. race — humankind
  12. race — the arms race
  13. last — finally
  14. straw — a straw man
  15. lie — an untruth
  16. degree — an amount
  17. lie — to recline
  18. degree — from a university
  19. straw — to clutch at straws
  20. content — the amount
  21. content — happy
  22. last — to go on
  23. clip — to cut
  24. content — videos and posts

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