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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.

Make a worksheet

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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Word bank
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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word from the word bank in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

Word bank: tear · march · degree · shower · nail · cold

  1. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. The ________________ went through the wall.
  4. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. She broke her ________________ while washing the dishes.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  9. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  10. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  13. He drove in a ________________ with his hammer.
  14. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  17. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  18. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. tear — from crying
  2. shower — to wash
  3. nail — for a hammer
  4. degree — from a university
  5. cold — an illness
  6. nail — on a finger
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. degree — an amount
  9. tear — from crying
  10. march — music
  11. cold — not warm
  12. march — the month
  13. nail — for a hammer
  14. shower — rain
  15. tear — to rip
  16. march — the month
  17. degree — temperature
  18. shower — a meteor shower

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