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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. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  2. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  3. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  4. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  5. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  6. Have you settled on a ________________?
  7. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  8. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  9. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  10. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  11. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  12. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  15. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  16. When are we going to ________________?
  17. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  18. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  21. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  22. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  23. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  24. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?

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

Answer key

  1. face — to point toward
  2. file — a tool
  3. race — humankind
  4. row — a quarrel
  5. land — ground
  6. date — on the calendar
  7. file — a line of people
  8. land — a country
  9. row — a line
  10. race — a contest
  11. degree — temperature
  12. date — on the calendar
  13. file — a document
  14. shower — to wash
  15. face — to confront
  16. land — to come down
  17. date — the fruit
  18. row — to paddle
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. face — part of the head
  21. shower — rain
  22. degree — from a university
  23. race — the arms race
  24. degree — an amount

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