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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. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  2. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  3. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  4. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  5. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  6. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  7. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  8. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. David sat on the ________________.
  15. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  16. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  17. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  18. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  19. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  22. He was locked up in a ________________.
  23. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  24. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. bat — the animal
  3. tear — from crying
  4. swing — music
  5. kick — in football
  6. cell — a phone
  7. swing — in golf
  8. row — a line
  9. cold — an illness
  10. tear — from crying
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. bat — for baseball
  13. degree — temperature
  14. swing — to play on
  15. cell — in biology
  16. degree — an amount
  17. kick — with a leg
  18. row — to paddle
  19. kick — a thrill
  20. cold — not warm
  21. row — a quarrel
  22. cell — in a prison
  23. bat — in an idiom
  24. tear — to rip

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