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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. You can't go backstage without a ________________.
  2. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  3. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  4. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  7. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  8. Don't do anything ________________.
  9. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  10. No doubt you will be able to ________________ the examination.
  11. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  12. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  13. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  14. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  15. He was locked up in a ________________.
  16. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  17. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  18. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  19. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  20. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  21. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  22. We wanted to take a walk to ________________ the time.
  23. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  24. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. pass — a permit
  2. cell — a phone
  3. race — the arms race
  4. field — a subject
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. field — farmland
  7. rash — on the skin
  8. rash — hasty
  9. field — for sport
  10. pass — to succeed
  11. race — a contest
  12. rash — a series
  13. mine — an explosive
  14. hand — help
  15. cell — in a prison
  16. degree — from a university
  17. mine — for digging
  18. hand — in cards
  19. mine — belonging to me
  20. degree — temperature
  21. degree — an amount
  22. pass — to spend time
  23. cell — in biology
  24. race — humankind

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