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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. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  2. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  3. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  4. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  5. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  6. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  7. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  8. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  9. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  10. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  11. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  18. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  19. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  20. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  21. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  22. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  23. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  24. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — to clutch at straws
  2. kick — a thrill
  3. fall — the season
  4. degree — an amount
  5. fall — to drop
  6. fall — to drop
  7. chest — of your body
  8. spring — of water
  9. kick — in football
  10. wind — moving air
  11. chest — a box
  12. spring — the season
  13. wound — an injury
  14. spring — a coil
  15. wound — past of 'wind'
  16. degree — temperature
  17. kick — with a leg
  18. wind — to turn a key
  19. wound — an injury
  20. straw — dry grass
  21. degree — from a university
  22. straw — a straw man
  23. wind — moving air
  24. chest — of your body

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