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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: chest · bark · bass · shower · spring · cap · degree · bat

  1. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  2. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  3. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  4. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  5. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  6. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  7. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  8. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  9. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  10. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  11. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  12. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  13. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  14. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  19. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  20. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  21. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  22. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  23. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  24. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.

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

Answer key

  1. cap — a lid
  2. bat — the animal
  3. shower — a meteor shower
  4. bark — of a tree
  5. spring — a coil
  6. bark — to shout
  7. chest — of your body
  8. cap — of ice
  9. bat — for baseball
  10. degree — from a university
  11. shower — to wash
  12. degree — temperature
  13. cap — a hat
  14. degree — an amount
  15. spring — the season
  16. spring — of water
  17. shower — rain
  18. bass — low music
  19. bass — the instrument
  20. chest — a box
  21. chest — of your body
  22. bass — the fish
  23. bark — a dog's sound
  24. bat — in an idiom

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