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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 116 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: degree · last · chair · drill · tear · prune · saw · march

  1. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  2. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  3. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  4. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  5. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  6. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  7. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  8. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  11. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  12. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  15. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  16. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  17. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  18. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  19. False peace will not ________________.
  20. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  21. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  22. She's very handy with a ________________.
  23. He works in a ________________ mill.
  24. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.

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

Answer key

  1. last — final
  2. march — the month
  3. chair — a leader
  4. prune — the fruit
  5. degree — from a university
  6. chair — a professorship
  7. degree — an amount
  8. chair — to sit on
  9. tear — from crying
  10. drill — the tool
  11. march — the month
  12. tear — from crying
  13. degree — temperature
  14. saw — past of 'see'
  15. prune — to trim
  16. drill — army training
  17. tear — to rip
  18. last — finally
  19. last — to go on
  20. drill — a practice
  21. prune — to trim
  22. saw — the tool
  23. saw — the tool
  24. march — music

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