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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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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: degree · press · cold · clip · file · bowl

  1. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  4. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  5. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  8. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  9. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  10. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  13. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  14. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  15. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  16. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. Did you ________________ the button?

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

Answer key

  1. press — a publisher
  2. cold — not warm
  3. press — newspapers
  4. bowl — a football final
  5. file — a line of people
  6. degree — an amount
  7. file — a tool
  8. file — a document
  9. clip — for paper
  10. clip — to cut
  11. cold — an illness
  12. degree — temperature
  13. bowl — a dish
  14. degree — from a university
  15. clip — a video
  16. bowl — to roll
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. press — to push

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