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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 museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  2. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  3. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  4. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  7. This is the first time I've ever walked with a ________________.
  8. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  9. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  10. Speak softly and carry a big ________________.
  11. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. Fiction is obliged to ________________ to possibilities. Truth isn't.
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. wax — for sculpting
  2. wax — in the ear
  3. row — a line
  4. wind — moving air
  5. cold — not warm
  6. wind — moving air
  7. stick — a piece of wood
  8. wax — to grow
  9. spring — of water
  10. stick — a piece of wood
  11. row — a quarrel
  12. cold — an illness
  13. row — to paddle
  14. spring — a coil
  15. stick — to attach or keep to
  16. spring — the season
  17. wind — to turn a key
  18. cold — the Cold War

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