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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 girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  2. We're on a ________________ here.
  3. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  4. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  5. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  8. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  9. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  10. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  13. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  14. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  15. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  16. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  17. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  18. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  19. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  20. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  23. I'll be taking the ________________.
  24. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. row — a line
  2. roll — on a roll
  3. march — music
  4. bass — the instrument
  5. tube — a container
  6. cold — an illness
  7. roll — a list
  8. row — a quarrel
  9. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  10. spring — a coil
  11. cold — not warm
  12. tube — in a tire
  13. spring — the season
  14. kid — to tease
  15. bass — low music
  16. bass — the fish
  17. roll — a cake
  18. kid — child
  19. row — to paddle
  20. spring — of water
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. march — the month
  23. tube — the underground
  24. march — the month

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