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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. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  2. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  3. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  4. Would you like some apricot ________________?
  5. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  6. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  7. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  8. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  9. The bus was late because of the traffic ________________.
  10. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  11. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  12. Tom got himself in a ________________.
  13. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  14. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  15. We're almost out of ________________.
  16. He was locked up in a ________________.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. You don't need to ________________ round.
  19. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  22. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  23. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. wound — past of 'wind'
  2. degree — from a university
  3. cold — an illness
  4. jam — to spread on bread
  5. row — a quarrel
  6. wound — an injury
  7. pop — music
  8. file — a line of people
  9. jam — in traffic
  10. file — a tool
  11. degree — an amount
  12. jam — a tight spot
  13. cell — a phone
  14. row — a line
  15. pop — soda
  16. cell — in a prison
  17. cold — not warm
  18. pop — to visit
  19. row — to paddle
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. file — a document
  22. degree — temperature
  23. wound — an injury
  24. cell — in biology

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