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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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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: degree · mine · ground · bark · cold · rush · file · march

  1. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  2. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  3. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  6. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  9. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  12. That must've been a ________________.
  13. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  14. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  15. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  16. There's no middle ________________.
  17. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  18. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  19. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  20. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. rush — hurry
  2. ground — crushed
  3. mine — an explosive
  4. file — a tool
  5. degree — from a university
  6. march — the month
  7. degree — temperature
  8. march — music
  9. mine — for digging
  10. cold — an illness
  11. bark — of a tree
  12. rush — a thrill
  13. mine — belonging to me
  14. march — the month
  15. bark — to shout
  16. ground — a position
  17. rush — to hurry
  18. ground — the earth
  19. bark — a dog's sound
  20. degree — an amount
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. file — a document
  23. file — a line of people
  24. cold — not warm

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