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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. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  2. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. The ball is in your ________________.
  6. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  7. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  8. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  9. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  12. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  13. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  14. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  15. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  16. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  17. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  20. I'll be taking the ________________.
  21. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  22. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  23. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  24. Don't do anything ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. drill — the tool
  2. tube — a container
  3. cold — not warm
  4. cold — an illness
  5. court — for sport
  6. court — of a king
  7. drill — a practice
  8. content — the amount
  9. tube — in a tire
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. drill — army training
  12. content — happy
  13. bat — in an idiom
  14. rash — a series
  15. bat — the animal
  16. spring — of water
  17. rash — on the skin
  18. spring — a coil
  19. spring — the season
  20. tube — the underground
  21. bat — for baseball
  22. court — of law
  23. content — videos and posts
  24. rash — hasty

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