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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. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  2. He hit the ball with his ________________.
  3. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  4. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  5. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  6. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  9. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  10. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  11. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  12. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  13. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  14. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  18. I haven't touched a tennis ________________ in years.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  21. Our cat is sitting in the apple tree, and the birds are making a ________________.
  22. When are we going to ________________?
  23. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  24. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — a coil
  2. racket — for tennis
  3. wax — in the ear
  4. wake — before a funeral
  5. wax — for sculpting
  6. spring — of water
  7. cold — not warm
  8. wake — to stop sleeping
  9. wax — to grow
  10. file — a tool
  11. capital — a city
  12. wake — a trail
  13. capital — a big letter
  14. file — a document
  15. spring — the season
  16. cold — an illness
  17. capital — money
  18. racket — for tennis
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. file — a line of people
  21. racket — a loud noise
  22. land — to come down
  23. land — a country
  24. land — ground

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