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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. When are we going to ________________?
  2. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  3. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  4. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  5. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  6. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  7. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  8. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  9. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  14. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  15. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  16. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  17. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  18. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  19. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. He was locked up in a ________________.
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. land — to come down
  2. file — a document
  3. spring — of water
  4. march — the month
  5. land — ground
  6. file — a tool
  7. march — the month
  8. cell — a phone
  9. spring — a coil
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. land — a country
  12. spring — the season
  13. march — music
  14. capital — a big letter
  15. fan — a supporter
  16. fan — to cool the air
  17. fan — a supporter
  18. cell — in biology
  19. file — a line of people
  20. cold — not warm
  21. capital — money
  22. cell — in a prison
  23. capital — a city
  24. cold — an illness

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