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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: pop · straw · shower · bark · hand · spring · patient · degree

  1. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  6. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  7. We're almost out of ________________.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  10. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  11. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  12. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  13. You don't need to ________________ round.
  14. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  15. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  16. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  17. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  18. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  19. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  22. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  23. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  24. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. degree — an amount
  3. shower — to wash
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. patient — a sick person
  6. spring — of water
  7. pop — soda
  8. hand — help
  9. pop — music
  10. patient — calm and waiting
  11. bark — to shout
  12. shower — a meteor shower
  13. pop — to visit
  14. straw — dry grass
  15. straw — to clutch at straws
  16. patient — a sick person
  17. hand — in cards
  18. bark — a dog's sound
  19. spring — the season
  20. spring — a coil
  21. shower — rain
  22. bark — of a tree
  23. degree — temperature
  24. straw — a straw man

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