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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 water is too ________________.
  2. The ceiling is a plaster ________________ painted with stars.
  3. Lukas kept the diamonds in a locked ________________.
  4. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  5. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  6. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  7. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  8. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  9. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  12. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  13. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  14. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  15. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  16. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  17. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  18. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  21. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  22. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  23. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  24. Champaud competed in the parallel bars, ________________, and pommel horse events.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. vault — an arched ceiling
  3. vault — a safe
  4. bark — to shout
  5. wind — to turn a key
  6. wound — an injury
  7. dip — to dunk
  8. wind — moving air
  9. bark — of a tree
  10. cold — an illness
  11. wind — moving air
  12. spring — a coil
  13. mine — belonging to me
  14. spring — of water
  15. wound — past of 'wind'
  16. wound — an injury
  17. bark — a dog's sound
  18. mine — for digging
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. mine — an explosive
  21. dip — to sink
  22. dip — a sauce
  23. spring — the season
  24. vault — in gymnastics

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