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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 need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  2. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  3. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  4. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  5. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  6. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  7. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  8. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  9. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  10. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  11. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  12. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  15. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  16. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  17. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  18. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  19. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  20. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  21. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  22. I'll be taking the ________________.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.

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

Answer key

  1. tube — in a tire
  2. march — the month
  3. fork — a garden tool
  4. content — the amount
  5. content — videos and posts
  6. mine — an explosive
  7. content — happy
  8. spring — the season
  9. mine — for digging
  10. fork — to eat with
  11. spring — a coil
  12. spring — of water
  13. cold — not warm
  14. present — a gift
  15. fork — in a road
  16. march — the month
  17. mine — belonging to me
  18. tube — a container
  19. march — music
  20. present — the time now
  21. cold — an illness
  22. tube — the underground
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. present — there

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