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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: wound · degree · straw · spring · lean · swing · cold · race

  1. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  2. Vegetables slowly ________________ towards the light.
  3. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  4. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  5. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  6. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  7. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  8. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  9. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  10. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. Don't ________________ against the wall. It's just been painted.
  13. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  14. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  19. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  20. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  21. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  22. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  23. David sat on the ________________.
  24. He is as ________________ as a wolf.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — dry grass
  2. lean — to bend
  3. spring — a coil
  4. straw — to clutch at straws
  5. degree — an amount
  6. race — a contest
  7. race — humankind
  8. straw — a straw man
  9. degree — from a university
  10. race — the arms race
  11. cold — not warm
  12. lean — to rest against
  13. swing — in golf
  14. wound — an injury
  15. spring — the season
  16. spring — of water
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. wound — past of 'wind'
  19. wound — an injury
  20. swing — music
  21. cold — an illness
  22. degree — temperature
  23. swing — to play on
  24. lean — thin

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