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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 water is too ________________.
  2. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  3. He is an ace ________________.
  4. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  7. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  8. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  9. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  10. I'll be taking the ________________.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  14. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  15. That was a fun ________________.
  16. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  17. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  18. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  19. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  20. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  21. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  22. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  23. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  24. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. game — wild animals
  3. pitcher — in baseball
  4. bowl — a football final
  5. cold — an illness
  6. game — a kind of play
  7. spring — a coil
  8. bat — the animal
  9. pitcher — a jug
  10. tube — the underground
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. bowl — to roll
  14. deal — a big deal
  15. game — a match
  16. deal — an agreement
  17. bowl — a dish
  18. spring — of water
  19. bat — for baseball
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. deal — to handle
  22. spring — the season
  23. tube — in a tire
  24. tube — a container

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