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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. ________________ you help me carry this box?
  2. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  3. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  4. He was locked up in a ________________.
  5. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  6. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  7. Recycle the empty soda ________________.
  8. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  11. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  12. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  13. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. She's very handy with a ________________.
  16. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  17. Tom opened a ________________ of soup.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  20. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  21. He works in a ________________ mill.
  22. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. can — to be able to
  2. row — a quarrel
  3. bat — in an idiom
  4. cell — in a prison
  5. capital — money
  6. row — a line
  7. can — a tin
  8. stem — to come from
  9. cold — not warm
  10. stem — a stem cell
  11. saw — past of 'see'
  12. cell — a phone
  13. bat — the animal
  14. cold — an illness
  15. saw — the tool
  16. stem — of a plant
  17. can — a tin
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. row — to paddle
  20. cell — in biology
  21. saw — the tool
  22. capital — a big letter
  23. capital — a city
  24. bat — for baseball

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