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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: tube · spell · degree · game · wind · pitcher · kid · cold

  1. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  2. How do you ________________ your surname?
  3. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  7. He is an ace ________________.
  8. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  11. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  14. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  15. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  16. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  17. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  18. I'll be taking the ________________.
  19. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  20. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  21. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  22. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  23. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  24. That was a fun ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. tube — a container
  2. spell — letters
  3. spell — a short time
  4. cold — not warm
  5. cold — an illness
  6. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  7. pitcher — in baseball
  8. pitcher — a jug
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. tube — in a tire
  11. spell — magic
  12. kid — child
  13. game — wild animals
  14. kid — to tease
  15. pitcher — a jug
  16. degree — temperature
  17. wind — to turn a key
  18. tube — the underground
  19. degree — an amount
  20. wind — moving air
  21. wind — moving air
  22. game — a kind of play
  23. degree — from a university
  24. game — a match

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