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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 116 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. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  3. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  4. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  7. Have you met the new head ________________?
  8. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  9. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  10. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  11. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  12. I'll be taking the ________________.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. How do you ________________ your surname?
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  20. We're almost out of ________________.
  21. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  22. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  23. You don't need to ________________ round.
  24. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. hand — part of the body
  3. tube — a container
  4. spell — magic
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. bat — in an idiom
  7. coach — a trainer
  8. pop — music
  9. hand — in cards
  10. coach — pulled by horses
  11. bat — for baseball
  12. tube — the underground
  13. cold — an illness
  14. spell — letters
  15. spring — a coil
  16. cold — not warm
  17. spell — a short time
  18. bat — the animal
  19. tube — in a tire
  20. pop — soda
  21. spring — the season
  22. coach — a trainer
  23. pop — to visit
  24. spring — of water

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