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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. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  2. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  3. I'll be taking the ________________.
  4. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  5. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  6. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  7. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  8. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  9. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  10. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  11. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  16. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  19. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  20. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  21. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  22. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  23. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  24. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — the season
  2. hand — help
  3. tube — the underground
  4. drill — the tool
  5. spring — a coil
  6. spring — of water
  7. wind — to turn a key
  8. drill — army training
  9. file — a document
  10. wax — to grow
  11. wax — in the ear
  12. hand — in cards
  13. wax — for sculpting
  14. file — a tool
  15. drill — a practice
  16. straw — to clutch at straws
  17. file — a line of people
  18. straw — a straw man
  19. wind — moving air
  20. tube — a container
  21. wind — moving air
  22. tube — in a tire
  23. hand — part of the body
  24. straw — dry grass

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