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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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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: court · march · rash · game · cold · cell · degree · fall

  1. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  2. The ball is in your ________________.
  3. He was locked up in a ________________.
  4. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  7. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  8. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  9. Don't do anything ________________.
  10. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  11. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  12. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  13. That was a fun ________________.
  14. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  15. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  19. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  22. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  23. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. court — of a king
  2. court — for sport
  3. cell — in a prison
  4. march — music
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. fall — to drop
  7. fall — to drop
  8. cell — in biology
  9. rash — hasty
  10. degree — temperature
  11. march — the month
  12. game — wild animals
  13. game — a match
  14. march — the month
  15. cell — a phone
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. fall — the season
  18. degree — from a university
  19. rash — a series
  20. cold — an illness
  21. degree — an amount
  22. court — of law
  23. rash — on the skin
  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