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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. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  2. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  3. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  6. Did you ________________ the button?
  7. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. When are we going to ________________?
  10. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  11. That was a fun ________________.
  12. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  13. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  14. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  18. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  19. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  20. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  21. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. He was locked up in a ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. game — wild animals
  2. rest — what's left
  3. cell — a phone
  4. bat — the animal
  5. rest — what's left
  6. press — to push
  7. press — a publisher
  8. cold — an illness
  9. land — to come down
  10. spring — of water
  11. game — a match
  12. spring — a coil
  13. land — a country
  14. bat — for baseball
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. rest — a break
  18. land — ground
  19. press — newspapers
  20. spring — the season
  21. cell — in biology
  22. cold — not warm
  23. cell — in a prison
  24. cold — the Cold War

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