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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. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. False peace will not ________________.
  4. Have you found your soul ________________?
  5. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  6. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  9. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  12. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  13. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  14. The ball is in your ________________.
  15. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  16. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  17. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  20. When are we going to ________________?
  21. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  22. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.

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

Answer key

  1. rest — a break
  2. degree — an amount
  3. last — to go on
  4. mate — a partner
  5. rest — what's left
  6. mate — a friend
  7. degree — temperature
  8. court — of law
  9. last — final
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. land — a country
  12. bark — to shout
  13. mate — to breed
  14. court — for sport
  15. bark — of a tree
  16. rest — what's left
  17. land — ground
  18. spring — a coil
  19. last — finally
  20. land — to come down
  21. court — of a king
  22. spring — the season
  23. spring — of water
  24. degree — from a university

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