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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. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  3. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  4. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  5. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  6. The ball is in your ________________.
  7. He works in a ________________ mill.
  8. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  9. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  12. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  13. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  14. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  17. She's very handy with a ________________.
  18. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  19. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  20. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  21. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. wind — moving air
  3. degree — from a university
  4. degree — temperature
  5. staff — employees
  6. court — for sport
  7. saw — the tool
  8. court — of a king
  9. staff — a stick
  10. clip — for paper
  11. wind — to turn a key
  12. saw — past of 'see'
  13. dip — to sink
  14. clip — to cut
  15. cold — not warm
  16. court — of law
  17. saw — the tool
  18. clip — a video
  19. staff — employees
  20. dip — a sauce
  21. dip — to dunk
  22. cold — an illness
  23. wind — moving air
  24. cold — the Cold War

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