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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. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  3. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  4. The ________________ market has crashed.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  8. False peace will not ________________.
  9. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  10. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  11. You don't need to ________________ round.
  12. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  13. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  14. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  17. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. We're almost out of ________________.
  20. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  21. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  24. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. stock — a soup base
  3. net — after costs
  4. stock — shares
  5. cold — not warm
  6. cold — an illness
  7. stock — goods
  8. last — to go on
  9. last — finally
  10. bore — to drill
  11. pop — to visit
  12. net — for catching
  13. bore — gave birth
  14. degree — temperature
  15. spring — the season
  16. bore — to tire
  17. net — in sport
  18. spring — a coil
  19. pop — soda
  20. pop — music
  21. last — final
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. degree — from a university
  24. spring — of water

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