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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 like lots of butter on my ________________ in the morning.
  2. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  3. Which do you like better, ________________ music or classical music?
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  6. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  7. The ________________ took off on time.
  8. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  11. I don't want to ________________ the boat.
  12. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  13. False peace will not ________________.
  14. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  15. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  16. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  17. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  18. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  19. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  20. I would like to propose a ________________ on your birthday.
  21. We were using a ________________ as a seat.
  22. After the show, she was the ________________ of the town.
  23. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  24. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.

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

Answer key

  1. toast — bread
  2. spring — of water
  3. rock — music
  4. bat — the animal
  5. wound — an injury
  6. wound — an injury
  7. plane — an aircraft
  8. wound — past of 'wind'
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. march — music
  11. rock — to move gently
  12. bat — for baseball
  13. last — to go on
  14. plane — in geometry
  15. march — the month
  16. spring — a coil
  17. last — finally
  18. march — the month
  19. last — final
  20. toast — a drink to someone
  21. rock — a stone
  22. toast — the most admired
  23. spring — the season
  24. plane — a tool

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