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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: wind · patient · degree · mine · deal · cold · bark · wound

  1. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  2. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  3. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  9. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  10. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  11. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  12. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  13. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  14. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  15. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  16. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  21. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  22. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  23. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  24. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.

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

Answer key

  1. wind — moving air
  2. deal — an agreement
  3. mine — belonging to me
  4. cold — an illness
  5. bark — of a tree
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. cold — not warm
  8. wind — moving air
  9. patient — a sick person
  10. mine — for digging
  11. deal — to handle
  12. degree — temperature
  13. wound — past of 'wind'
  14. patient — calm and waiting
  15. degree — an amount
  16. bark — to shout
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. bark — a dog's sound
  19. wound — an injury
  20. patient — a sick person
  21. wound — an injury
  22. deal — a big deal
  23. mine — an explosive
  24. degree — from a university

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