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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 116 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 · file · wind · bat · clip · kid · track · last

  1. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  2. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  3. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  4. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  5. False peace will not ________________.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  9. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  10. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  11. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  14. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  18. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  19. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  20. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  21. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  22. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  23. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  24. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.

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

Answer key

  1. degree — an amount
  2. kid — child
  3. kid — to tease
  4. clip — a video
  5. last — to go on
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. clip — for paper
  8. track — a path
  9. last — final
  10. clip — to cut
  11. file — a document
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. degree — from a university
  14. degree — temperature
  15. file — a tool
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. bat — the animal
  18. wind — moving air
  19. track — to keep track
  20. file — a line of people
  21. wind — moving air
  22. bat — for baseball
  23. last — finally
  24. track — a song

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