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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. I've got to change the light ________________.
  2. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  3. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.
  4. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  5. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  8. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  9. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  10. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  11. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  12. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  13. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  14. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  17. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  18. The light ________________ burned out.
  19. Have you settled on a ________________?
  20. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  24. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.

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

Answer key

  1. bulb — for light
  2. present — a gift
  3. bulb — of a plant
  4. kid — child
  5. branch — a division
  6. cold — an illness
  7. present — the time now
  8. date — on the calendar
  9. spring — the season
  10. spring — a coil
  11. spring — of water
  12. date — the fruit
  13. capital — a city
  14. present — there
  15. cold — not warm
  16. kid — to tease
  17. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  18. bulb — for light
  19. date — on the calendar
  20. branch — of a tree
  21. capital — money
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. capital — a big letter
  24. branch — of a bank

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