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

Word bank: degree · chair · wound · press · wind · straw

  1. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  2. Did you ________________ the button?
  3. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  4. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  5. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  6. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  7. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  8. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  9. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  10. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  11. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  12. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  13. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  14. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  15. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — to sit on
  2. press — to push
  3. wind — moving air
  4. degree — from a university
  5. wind — moving air
  6. wound — an injury
  7. straw — a straw man
  8. chair — a leader
  9. press — a publisher
  10. wind — to turn a key
  11. wound — an injury
  12. degree — an amount
  13. wound — past of 'wind'
  14. straw — to clutch at straws
  15. straw — dry grass
  16. degree — temperature
  17. press — newspapers
  18. chair — a professorship

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