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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 120 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: kid · wind · chair · wax · degree · fan · cold · chest

  1. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  2. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  3. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  4. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  5. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  8. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  11. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  14. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  15. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  18. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  19. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  20. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  21. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  24. Can you turn the ________________ on?

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

Answer key

  1. fan — a supporter
  2. kid — to tease
  3. chair — a professorship
  4. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  5. chest — a box
  6. cold — an illness
  7. chair — a leader
  8. chair — to sit on
  9. degree — temperature
  10. wax — for sculpting
  11. wind — moving air
  12. kid — child
  13. wind — moving air
  14. degree — from a university
  15. wax — in the ear
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. wax — to grow
  18. degree — an amount
  19. fan — a supporter
  20. wind — to turn a key
  21. chest — of your body
  22. cold — not warm
  23. chest — of your body
  24. fan — to cool the air

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