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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. David sat on the ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  4. Our cat is sitting in the apple tree, and the birds are making a ________________.
  5. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  6. He hit the ball with his ________________.
  7. That was a fun ________________.
  8. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  9. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  10. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. I haven't touched a tennis ________________ in years.
  13. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  14. He was locked up in a ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  19. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  20. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  21. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  22. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  23. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  24. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.

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

Answer key

  1. swing — to play on
  2. cold — an illness
  3. swing — music
  4. racket — a loud noise
  5. game — a kind of play
  6. racket — for tennis
  7. game — a match
  8. spring — the season
  9. bat — for baseball
  10. game — wild animals
  11. bat — the animal
  12. racket — for tennis
  13. cell — a phone
  14. cell — in a prison
  15. cold — not warm
  16. bat — in an idiom
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. march — music
  19. spring — of water
  20. march — the month
  21. swing — in golf
  22. march — the month
  23. cell — in biology
  24. spring — a coil

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