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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: cold · hand · season · net · bark · degree · capital · wax

  1. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  3. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  4. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  5. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  6. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  7. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  10. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  11. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  17. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  18. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  19. Did you ________________ the meat?
  20. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  21. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  22. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  23. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  24. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. capital — a big letter
  3. bark — of a tree
  4. degree — temperature
  5. capital — money
  6. wax — for sculpting
  7. capital — a city
  8. hand — help
  9. season — in sport
  10. net — for catching
  11. wax — to grow
  12. cold — not warm
  13. bark — a dog's sound
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. cold — an illness
  16. net — in sport
  17. wax — in the ear
  18. degree — from a university
  19. season — to add flavour
  20. net — after costs
  21. bark — to shout
  22. hand — in cards
  23. season — of the year
  24. hand — part of the body

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