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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: bat · row · shower · degree · net · can · cold · sharp

  1. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. Recycle the empty soda ________________.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  5. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  8. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  9. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  10. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  11. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  12. It's one o'clock ________________.
  13. Tom opened a ________________ of soup.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  18. ________________ you help me carry this box?
  19. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  20. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  21. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  22. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  23. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  24. What was your ________________ profit last year?

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. can — a tin
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. sharp — with an edge
  5. bat — the animal
  6. cold — an illness
  7. net — for catching
  8. degree — from a university
  9. degree — an amount
  10. shower — rain
  11. degree — temperature
  12. sharp — exactly
  13. can — a tin
  14. cold — not warm
  15. bat — for baseball
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. net — in sport
  18. can — to be able to
  19. sharp — clever
  20. row — to paddle
  21. row — a line
  22. row — a quarrel
  23. bat — in an idiom
  24. net — after costs

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