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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. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  2. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  8. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  9. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  12. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  13. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  14. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  15. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  16. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  17. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  18. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  19. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  20. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  21. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  22. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  23. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  24. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — a professorship
  2. mine — belonging to me
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. file — a tool
  5. cold — an illness
  6. cold — not warm
  7. pound — for dogs
  8. chair — to sit on
  9. fall — to drop
  10. file — a document
  11. file — a line of people
  12. net — after costs
  13. patient — a sick person
  14. mine — for digging
  15. patient — a sick person
  16. chair — a leader
  17. patient — calm and waiting
  18. net — for catching
  19. mine — an explosive
  20. net — in sport
  21. fall — to drop
  22. fall — the season
  23. pound — a weight
  24. pound — to hit hard

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