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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. The ball is in your ________________.
  2. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  3. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  4. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  5. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  8. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  9. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  10. When are we going to ________________?
  11. How do you ________________ your surname?
  12. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  13. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  14. That must've been a ________________.
  15. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  16. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  17. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  18. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  19. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  20. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  21. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  22. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  23. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  24. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.

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

Answer key

  1. court — for sport
  2. spell — magic
  3. race — humankind
  4. march — the month
  5. land — ground
  6. degree — an amount
  7. race — a contest
  8. race — the arms race
  9. spell — a short time
  10. land — to come down
  11. spell — letters
  12. rush — to hurry
  13. drill — army training
  14. rush — a thrill
  15. march — music
  16. rush — hurry
  17. court — of a king
  18. drill — a practice
  19. degree — from a university
  20. court — of law
  21. degree — temperature
  22. march — the month
  23. land — a country
  24. drill — the tool

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