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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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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: clip · degree · cold · cabinet · wind · file

  1. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. In all probability, the ________________ will fall.
  4. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  5. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  6. What do you think of the new ________________?
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  10. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  11. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  12. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  15. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  16. She took a metal box from the top of the kitchen ________________.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. clip — to cut
  3. cabinet — ministers
  4. cold — the Cold War
  5. wind — moving air
  6. cabinet — ministers
  7. cold — an illness
  8. clip — for paper
  9. clip — a video
  10. degree — from a university
  11. wind — moving air
  12. file — a tool
  13. file — a document
  14. file — a line of people
  15. wind — to turn a key
  16. cabinet — a cupboard
  17. cold — not warm
  18. degree — temperature

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