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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 120 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. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  4. Have you found your soul ________________?
  5. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. Nothing provides more peace of mind than a ________________ decision.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  15. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  16. The ball is in your ________________.
  17. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  20. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  21. I'll stand ________________ for what I deserve.
  22. She works as an advertiser at a New Jersey ________________.
  23. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  24. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — part of the body
  2. cold — an illness
  3. mate — to breed
  4. mate — a partner
  5. mate — a friend
  6. degree — an amount
  7. clip — for paper
  8. row — a quarrel
  9. clip — to cut
  10. row — a line
  11. cold — not warm
  12. firm — decided
  13. clip — a video
  14. degree — from a university
  15. degree — temperature
  16. court — for sport
  17. hand — in cards
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. court — of a king
  20. hand — help
  21. firm — steady
  22. firm — a company
  23. row — to paddle
  24. court — of law

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