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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 band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  2. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  5. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  8. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  9. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  10. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  11. The ________________ took off on time.
  12. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  13. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  14. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  15. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  16. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  17. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  18. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  19. He was locked up in a ________________.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  22. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  23. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  24. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.

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

Answer key

  1. march — music
  2. wound — past of 'wind'
  3. cold — not warm
  4. shower — to wash
  5. straw — dry grass
  6. cold — an illness
  7. face — part of the head
  8. wound — an injury
  9. cell — a phone
  10. wound — an injury
  11. plane — an aircraft
  12. shower — rain
  13. straw — to clutch at straws
  14. shower — a meteor shower
  15. plane — a tool
  16. plane — in geometry
  17. march — the month
  18. march — the month
  19. cell — in a prison
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. cell — in biology
  22. straw — a straw man
  23. face — to point toward
  24. face — to confront

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