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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 120 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 hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  2. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  3. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  6. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  7. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  8. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  9. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  10. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  11. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  12. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  13. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  14. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  15. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  16. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  17. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  20. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — of water
  2. snap — to speak sharply
  3. spring — the season
  4. kid — to tease
  5. rule — a law
  6. kid — child
  7. bear — the animal
  8. wound — an injury
  9. bear — to put up with
  10. snap — to click
  11. bear — the animal
  12. wound — past of 'wind'
  13. rule — government
  14. file — a line of people
  15. file — a document
  16. file — a tool
  17. wound — an injury
  18. cold — not warm
  19. snap — to snap out of it
  20. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  21. spring — a coil
  22. rule — to rule out
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. cold — an illness

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