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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 girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  2. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  3. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  4. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  10. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  11. It's one o'clock ________________.
  12. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  13. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  14. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  17. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  18. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  19. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  20. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  21. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  24. We took cover from the thunder ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. row — a line
  2. chest — of your body
  3. row — to paddle
  4. patient — calm and waiting
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. cold — not warm
  7. chest — a box
  8. cold — an illness
  9. patient — a sick person
  10. shower — a meteor shower
  11. sharp — exactly
  12. shower — to wash
  13. dip — to dunk
  14. dip — a sauce
  15. file — a tool
  16. sharp — with an edge
  17. chest — of your body
  18. file — a line of people
  19. dip — to sink
  20. sharp — clever
  21. patient — a sick person
  22. file — a document
  23. row — a quarrel
  24. shower — rain

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