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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 · chair · fork · cold · saw · face · stock

  1. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  3. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  4. The ________________ market has crashed.
  5. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. He works in a ________________ mill.
  8. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  13. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  14. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  15. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  20. She's very handy with a ________________.
  21. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  24. What's the difference between broth and ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. chair — a professorship
  3. clip — for paper
  4. stock — shares
  5. face — to point toward
  6. clip — to cut
  7. saw — the tool
  8. face — part of the head
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. chair — to sit on
  11. clip — a video
  12. stock — goods
  13. saw — past of 'see'
  14. face — to confront
  15. fork — in a road
  16. degree — temperature
  17. degree — from a university
  18. cold — not warm
  19. fork — a garden tool
  20. saw — the tool
  21. fork — to eat with
  22. cold — an illness
  23. chair — a leader
  24. stock — a soup base

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