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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: cold · drill · degree · fan · season · wound · file · sharp

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  4. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  5. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  8. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  9. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  10. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  11. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  12. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  13. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  14. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  15. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  16. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  17. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  18. It's one o'clock ________________.
  19. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  20. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  21. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  22. Did you ________________ the meat?
  23. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. cold — not warm
  3. sharp — clever
  4. file — a document
  5. fan — to cool the air
  6. degree — an amount
  7. wound — an injury
  8. fan — a supporter
  9. season — in sport
  10. drill — a practice
  11. sharp — with an edge
  12. degree — from a university
  13. file — a line of people
  14. wound — past of 'wind'
  15. degree — temperature
  16. season — of the year
  17. wound — an injury
  18. sharp — exactly
  19. drill — army training
  20. drill — the tool
  21. fan — a supporter
  22. season — to add flavour
  23. file — a tool
  24. cold — the Cold War

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