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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 120 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. He is an ace ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  6. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  7. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  8. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  9. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  12. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  13. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  14. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  17. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  18. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  19. Did you ________________ the meat?
  20. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  23. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. pitcher — in baseball
  2. cold — an illness
  3. hand — help
  4. cold — not warm
  5. file — a document
  6. spring — of water
  7. fork — to eat with
  8. pitcher — a jug
  9. file — a line of people
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. spring — the season
  12. fork — a garden tool
  13. hand — in cards
  14. fork — in a road
  15. file — a tool
  16. field — a subject
  17. season — of the year
  18. field — for sport
  19. season — to add flavour
  20. hand — part of the body
  21. spring — a coil
  22. season — in sport
  23. pitcher — a jug
  24. field — farmland

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