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Homonyms Quiz #2

Can you guess each homonym based on two different definitions?
Homonyms are words that have the same spelling and pronunciation, but different meanings.
Includes both true and polysemous homonyms
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: August 31, 2015
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First submittedNovember 29, 2011
Times taken60,387
Average score60.0%
Rating4.15
5:00
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Meaning #1
Meaning #2
Answer
Leader
Unit of lettuce
Head
Spy
Tunnel-digging animal
Mole
Type of fruit
Romantic meeting
Date
Certain cattle
To maneuver a vehicle
Steer
Runner's starting point
Con man's target
Mark
Cooling device
Sports enthusiast
Fan
Seller of stolen goods
To fight with swords
Fence
Frosting
Hockey violation
Icing
To fire
To plunder
Sack
To long for
Type of tree
Pine
Meaning #1
Meaning #2
Answer
Average
Unkind
Mean
Piece of land
To conspire
Plot
Place for art
Theater seating area
Gallery
To mimic
Large primate
Ape
Type of bird
Coward
Chicken
Unit of time
Duelist's assistant
Second
Spinning toy
Best
Top
Papal edict
Optimistic investor
Bull
Expensive
Opening to a letter
Dear
Golf area
Inexperienced
Green
+15
Level 65
Nov 29, 2011
Dear and expensive? I didn't know "dear" could be used that way.
+3
Level 82
Aug 16, 2014
Same. Only one I hadn't heard before.
+2
Level 75
Aug 16, 2014
Never heard that term before either.
+5
Level 73
Dec 11, 2016
I've only seen "It cost me dearly..."
+17
Level 58
Aug 16, 2014
That would be the most common way of saying expensive in Australia, and I imagine it is the same in Britain?
+8
Level 45
Aug 18, 2014
I'm in the UK and I use 'dear' quite a lot meaning expensive.
+2
Level 28
Jan 18, 2015
I'm American, but I know it since I read tons of historical novels XD
+2
Level 68
Nov 27, 2016
Easiest question.
+1
Level 61
Jan 13, 2017
I understand it's originally a Scottish word.
+3
Level 66
Apr 3, 2019
No it comes from old english and before that a predecessor to the germanic languages. Dutch has duur and german has teuer both meaning expensive.

in the english language it has evolved from from something valuable (to you) to someone that you care for (so still has a high value to you) in some places like american english this new meaning has allmost entirely replaced the old meaning. In other places both are used. (I do believe it is used a lot in scotland the people i ve seen allways say dear instead of expensive)

+1
Level 51
Jan 23, 2024
works in French and Italian too. Cher and Caro can both mean 'dear' and 'expensive'.
+1
Level 35
Sep 11, 2019
@Sifhraven, you'd probably have more luck in life if you started informative sentences without the word 'No'.
+1
Level 75
Feb 18, 2015
I had no problem with that one, although I do watch a lot of BBC shows and read Regency romance novels. Same with sack - knew it immediately.
+6
Level 65
May 28, 2016
My nana says it. I think it's British. In French it's the same word as well "cher/e".
+4
Level 45
Nov 27, 2016
I think it's more of a British thing. There's a line in the Beatles' song that goes "Every summer we can rent a cottage on the

Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear."

+1
Level 37
Jul 22, 2018
I've heard the word dear used before to express how expensive a cost is. "It was quite a dear a price to pay" etc. Maybe not as common in the u.s. , however the Hungarian word for both dear and expensive are the same word. Which by the way is Draga.
+2
Level 66
Apr 3, 2019
I actually dont think we have a word for dear in dutch that fits the same spot (not the expensive one, that is duur, where dear originated from /shares origins with).

It would be sweet (lieve) in dear Chris. And someone is dear to me, i guess would become someone is important (belangrijk) to me or means a lot to me (betekend veel voor me) or I care (a lot) for (geef (veel) om)

+1
Level 72
Jun 2, 2021
Like emwcee said, many of us here in the U.S. first heard the word used this way in the Beatles' song "When I'm 64":

"Every summer we can rent a cottage/In the Isle of Wight if it's not too dear."

+3
Level 64
Jun 2, 2021
Venison's dear isn't it?
+1
Level 76
Jun 28, 2023
XD
+1
Level 28
Nov 29, 2011
Why was this one tough for me?
+1
Level 24
Nov 29, 2011
I sympathise with Ithabise...
+1
Level 37
Dec 8, 2011
I say "dear" to mean expensive all the time, that's just what I say... I didn't realise it was odd until some friends pointed out to me that nobody else said it and they only knew what I meant because they were used to me...
+2
Level 71
Nov 1, 2016
Dear is the common word for expensive in Britain, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand at least (I don't know about Canada)
+1
Level 43
Nov 29, 2016
Not in South Africa. Perhaps you're thinking of the Afrikaans word "duur" which means expensive but not dear. I've never heard dear used in English to mean expensive in this part of the world.
+2
Level 55
Apr 13, 2017
it'scommonly used in Canada as well
+1
Level 62
Jun 28, 2023
I'm Canadian, and I've never heard it used here.
+2
Level 19
Nov 24, 2013
What fun!!
+2
Level 45
Jun 21, 2014
What fun!!!
+4
Level 69
Jul 20, 2014
What fun?
+4
Level 45
Jul 31, 2014
No, noodles, you're supposed to say 'What fun!!!!', adding another exclamation point every time.
+3
Level 82
Aug 16, 2014
What, fun?
+1
Level 45
Aug 16, 2014
Humph.
+1
Level 65
Feb 10, 2022
What fun !?!? (Aping)
+4
Level 40
Aug 1, 2014
HOW COULD I NOT GET CHICKEN?! -.-
+2
Level 37
Aug 16, 2014
Don't feel bad, that was one of the last ones I got. I think we were both looking for something more obscure.
+3
Level 88
Jul 15, 2018
It's just a metaphor of the same word, not two words that are spelled the same coincidentally through separate origins.
+8
Level 63
Aug 18, 2014
Should it really considered a homonym when one usage of a word is metaphorical and directly based on the other usage? For example, to "ape" someone means they are acting like an ape in copying them. That's like saying "killed" is a homonym based on "We killed in basketball last night" and "He killed the clerk in cold blood."
+1
Level 60
Jul 21, 2015
And that's what polysemous homonyms are. Look at the instructions.
+1
Level 66
Apr 3, 2019
Maybe they should add a synonym for polysemous.
+2
Level 88
Feb 16, 2020
A synonym for polysemous would be cop out answer.
+1
Level 77
Oct 24, 2014
I am not getting why "to fire" = sack? - The rest are all known to me.
+4
Level 79
Jan 6, 2015
That is more common usage in the UK
+1
Level 77
Oct 23, 2015
Thanks. Right now I don't get why I ever didn't get that? :D
+1
Level 63
Nov 18, 2016
I remember it from reading Harry Potter years ago.
+2
Level 69
Nov 27, 2016
Just think of Trump and 'You're fired'. His 'apprentices' are being sacked
+1
Level 93
Feb 14, 2019
...apart from the fact that they don't work for him yet, so they can't be fired.
+2
Level 70
Jun 3, 2021
Every reality show has very calculated editing, but apparently producers of The Apprentice frequently had to completely reverse engineer story lines to be more congruent with DJT's capricious and often totally baseless boardroom decisions about who to fire.
+1
Level 33
Sep 4, 2015
i thought it was a good quiz! Thanks.
+3
Level 47
Oct 13, 2016
Never heard of the usages of Dear or Sack. But then again. I'm only 11 so I haven't had to much life experience.
+6
Level 71
Nov 1, 2016
Looks like you have plenty of money and no job.
+2
Level 33
Nov 27, 2016
Instead of "Expensive" for "Dear" something like "Valuable" would make more sense.
+1
Level ∞
Apr 14, 2023
No, it means expensive, especially in British English.

Example: "Every summer we can rent a cottage In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear"

+2
Level 51
Nov 27, 2016
I've worked in the theatre for almost 40 years. Never heard any part of it referred to as "gallery". Maybe a British term?
+1
Level 73
May 23, 2018
Yeah, that one seemed like a stretch to me but I eventually got that one by focusing on the art part. I was typing in things like wall and mezzanine and balcony and whatever else I could think of, I mean you can kind of put art anywhere depending on what it is.

The hardest one for me was plunder/fire. Here in America, "sack" is very rarely used to describe anything other then, say, a successful medieval siege. I have heard it in English (UK) language before but took a long time for my brain to find that association.

+7
Level 88
Jan 19, 2020
I'm surprised there aren't more comments from the peanut gallery.
+3
Level 74
Nov 29, 2016
I've never heard of "fence" being used to describe the seller, but rather the verb. "He fenced that car stereo to earn the money" no one would say " He went to seen the fence about the stolen car stereo"
+1
Level 70
Mar 2, 2018
In the UK they would.
+2
Level 76
Apr 5, 2018
+4
Level 88
Jan 19, 2020
Correct, nobody would use seen in the infinitive.
+6
Level 48
Jun 8, 2017
Okay, a little British revenge for all those Americentric quizzes.
+2
Level 50
Dec 31, 2019
Legitimately got 3/20. I’m awful with this
+1
Level 43
Jan 19, 2020
I put cabbage for the first one. I mean... I'm just not with it today.
+2
Level 79
Feb 19, 2021
Who else tried 'ostrich' for type of bird and coward?
+2
Level 68
Jun 2, 2021
Icing is not a violation! Different penalties such as slashing and hooking are violations.
+6
Level 56
Jun 2, 2021
For "Leader and Unit of Lettuce", I instantly thought of Saladin.
+4
Level 78
Jun 2, 2021
I thought of Caesar but yours is better.
+2
Level 52
Jun 3, 2021
you can measure lettuce with rulers
+1
Level 67
Jun 4, 2021
I got bull when guessing cattle
+4
Level 67
Jun 5, 2021
Can one of the definitions for 'fence' be: "A dividing structure between plots of land"?

I've never heard of the first definition used.

+2
Level 65
Oct 9, 2021
I was sure "coward" was a type of bird too, turns out I was thinking of cowbird, which lays its eggs in others' nests like a cuckoo. I don't think these etymologies are spurious.
+1
Level 49
Jun 24, 2023
12 out of these 40 i have never heard of before
+1
Level 48
Jun 24, 2023
Never heard of 'steer' being used to describe cattle before.
+1
Level 76
Jun 28, 2023
Me neither. Turns out it's a castrated bull.