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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. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  4. He is an ace ________________.
  5. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  6. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  7. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  8. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  9. Did you ________________ the meat?
  10. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  11. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  14. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  15. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  19. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  20. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  21. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  22. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. cold — not warm
  3. spring — a coil
  4. pitcher — in baseball
  5. chair — to sit on
  6. file — a document
  7. chair — a leader
  8. pitcher — a jug
  9. season — to add flavour
  10. bark — of a tree
  11. spring — of water
  12. cold — an illness
  13. bark — to shout
  14. season — in sport
  15. file — a line of people
  16. spring — the season
  17. file — a tool
  18. chair — a professorship
  19. season — of the year
  20. bark — a dog's sound
  21. snap — to snap out of it
  22. pitcher — a jug
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. snap — to speak sharply

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