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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. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  2. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  3. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  6. The ball is in your ________________.
  7. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  8. He is an ace ________________.
  9. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  10. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  11. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  12. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  13. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  16. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  17. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  20. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  21. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  22. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  23. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  24. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.

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

Answer key

  1. mine — belonging to me
  2. spring — the season
  3. chair — a professorship
  4. cold — not warm
  5. chair — to sit on
  6. court — for sport
  7. pitcher — a jug
  8. pitcher — in baseball
  9. mine — an explosive
  10. pitcher — a jug
  11. court — of a king
  12. spring — a coil
  13. mine — for digging
  14. cold — an illness
  15. wound — past of 'wind'
  16. court — of law
  17. spring — of water
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. chair — a leader
  20. wound — an injury
  21. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  22. kid — child
  23. wound — an injury
  24. kid — to tease

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