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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. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  2. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  3. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  4. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  5. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  6. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  7. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  8. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  12. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  13. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  14. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  15. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  16. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  17. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. He was locked up in a ________________.
  20. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  21. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  22. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  23. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  24. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.

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

Answer key

  1. cell — a phone
  2. pitch — a sports field
  3. face — to confront
  4. mine — belonging to me
  5. pitch — a sales talk
  6. band — a ring
  7. band — a rubber band
  8. degree — temperature
  9. cold — an illness
  10. cold — not warm
  11. pitch — completely
  12. mine — an explosive
  13. mine — for digging
  14. band — a music group
  15. degree — an amount
  16. march — the month
  17. cell — in biology
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. cell — in a prison
  20. degree — from a university
  21. face — part of the head
  22. face — to point toward
  23. march — the month
  24. march — music

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