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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. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  4. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  5. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  6. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  7. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  8. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  9. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  10. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  11. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  12. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  13. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  14. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  15. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  16. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  19. The ball is in your ________________.
  20. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  21. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  22. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  23. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  24. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — in cards
  2. degree — an amount
  3. bark — a dog's sound
  4. fall — to drop
  5. bark — of a tree
  6. prune — to trim
  7. prune — to trim
  8. prune — the fruit
  9. file — a line of people
  10. hand — part of the body
  11. degree — temperature
  12. file — a tool
  13. degree — from a university
  14. hand — help
  15. court — of a king
  16. race — the arms race
  17. fall — the season
  18. race — a contest
  19. court — for sport
  20. race — humankind
  21. court — of law
  22. bark — to shout
  23. file — a document
  24. fall — to drop

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