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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 in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  4. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  5. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  6. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  7. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  8. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  9. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  10. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  13. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  14. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  15. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. file — a document
  2. cold — not warm
  3. present — a gift
  4. shower — to wash
  5. spring — the season
  6. shower — a meteor shower
  7. chest — of your body
  8. spring — a coil
  9. file — a line of people
  10. present — there
  11. cold — an illness
  12. chest — of your body
  13. chest — a box
  14. spring — of water
  15. present — the time now
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. shower — rain
  18. file — a tool

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