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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. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  2. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  3. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  4. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  5. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  6. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  7. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  8. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  9. It's one o'clock ________________.
  10. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  11. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  12. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  13. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  14. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  15. The ball is in your ________________.
  16. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  17. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  18. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  21. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  24. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.

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

Answer key

  1. bass — low music
  2. band — a music group
  3. band — a ring
  4. degree — an amount
  5. bass — the instrument
  6. court — of a king
  7. sharp — with an edge
  8. drill — the tool
  9. sharp — exactly
  10. bass — the fish
  11. band — a rubber band
  12. court — of law
  13. drill — a practice
  14. degree — temperature
  15. court — for sport
  16. sharp — clever
  17. degree — from a university
  18. wound — past of 'wind'
  19. wound — an injury
  20. file — a line of people
  21. drill — army training
  22. file — a document
  23. file — a tool
  24. wound — an injury

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