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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. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  3. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  4. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  5. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  6. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  7. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  8. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  9. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  10. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  11. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  12. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  13. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  14. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  15. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  16. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  17. How do you ________________ your surname?
  18. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  19. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  20. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  21. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  22. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  23. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  24. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. squash — the sport
  3. chest — of your body
  4. branch — a division
  5. bass — the fish
  6. capital — a big letter
  7. bass — low music
  8. spell — magic
  9. squash — the vegetable
  10. degree — from a university
  11. net — for catching
  12. chest — of your body
  13. net — in sport
  14. bass — the instrument
  15. degree — temperature
  16. squash — to crush
  17. spell — letters
  18. capital — money
  19. net — after costs
  20. chest — a box
  21. branch — of a tree
  22. capital — a city
  23. branch — of a bank
  24. spell — a short time

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