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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. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  2. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  3. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  6. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  7. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  8. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  9. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  10. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  11. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  14. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  15. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. That must've been a ________________.
  23. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  24. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.

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

Answer key

  1. rush — hurry
  2. fork — to eat with
  3. capital — a big letter
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. row — a quarrel
  6. face — to confront
  7. hand — help
  8. content — happy
  9. row — to paddle
  10. face — part of the head
  11. fork — in a road
  12. hand — in cards
  13. rush — to hurry
  14. face — to point toward
  15. content — the amount
  16. cold — an illness
  17. capital — a city
  18. cold — not warm
  19. fork — a garden tool
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. capital — money
  22. rush — a thrill
  23. content — videos and posts
  24. row — a line

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