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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. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  4. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  5. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  6. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  7. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  8. The water is too ________________.
  9. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  10. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  13. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  14. There's no middle ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  18. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  19. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  20. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  21. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  22. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  23. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  24. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.

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

Answer key

  1. file — a tool
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. bat — for baseball
  4. file — a document
  5. patient — a sick person
  6. ground — crushed
  7. drill — a practice
  8. cold — not warm
  9. ground — the earth
  10. patient — a sick person
  11. bat — the animal
  12. row — a line
  13. bark — a dog's sound
  14. ground — a position
  15. cold — an illness
  16. file — a line of people
  17. drill — the tool
  18. bark — of a tree
  19. patient — calm and waiting
  20. row — to paddle
  21. row — a quarrel
  22. bark — to shout
  23. drill — army training
  24. bat — in an idiom

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