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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: wake · bark · hand · degree · hide · deal · file · kid

  1. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  2. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  3. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  4. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  5. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  6. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  7. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  8. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  9. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  10. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  11. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  14. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  15. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  16. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  17. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  18. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  19. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  20. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  21. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  22. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  23. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. wake — to stop sleeping
  2. hand — part of the body
  3. degree — from a university
  4. hide — animal skin
  5. kid — to tease
  6. bark — of a tree
  7. deal — a big deal
  8. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  9. hide — to keep secret
  10. hand — help
  11. deal — to handle
  12. kid — child
  13. degree — an amount
  14. hide — to keep secret
  15. wake — a trail
  16. deal — an agreement
  17. degree — temperature
  18. bark — to shout
  19. file — a document
  20. wake — before a funeral
  21. hand — in cards
  22. file — a tool
  23. bark — a dog's sound
  24. file — a line of people

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