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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. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  2. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  3. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  6. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  7. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  8. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  9. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  10. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  11. I'll be taking the ________________.
  12. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  13. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  14. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  19. The ball is in your ________________.
  20. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  21. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  22. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  23. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  24. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — a coil
  2. tube — in a tire
  3. wound — past of 'wind'
  4. file — a tool
  5. wound — an injury
  6. spring — the season
  7. bat — for baseball
  8. rest — what's left
  9. race — the arms race
  10. rest — a break
  11. tube — the underground
  12. rest — what's left
  13. wound — an injury
  14. tube — a container
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. file — a document
  17. file — a line of people
  18. court — of law
  19. court — for sport
  20. bat — the animal
  21. spring — of water
  22. court — of a king
  23. race — a contest
  24. race — humankind

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