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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. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  2. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  3. How do you ________________ your surname?
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  6. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  7. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  8. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  11. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  14. When are we going to ________________?
  15. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  18. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  19. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  20. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  21. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  24. I play ________________ in a jazz band.

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

Answer key

  1. bass — low music
  2. wake — to stop sleeping
  3. spell — letters
  4. cold — not warm
  5. spell — a short time
  6. fall — to drop
  7. spell — magic
  8. file — a tool
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. land — ground
  11. fall — the season
  12. kid — child
  13. bass — the fish
  14. land — to come down
  15. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  16. file — a line of people
  17. wake — a trail
  18. kid — to tease
  19. file — a document
  20. land — a country
  21. wake — before a funeral
  22. cold — an illness
  23. fall — to drop
  24. bass — the instrument

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