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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. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. She's very handy with a ________________.
  4. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  5. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  6. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  7. We wanted to take a walk to ________________ the time.
  8. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  9. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  10. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  11. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  12. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  13. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. Have you found your soul ________________?
  18. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  19. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  20. No doubt you will be able to ________________ the examination.
  21. You can't go backstage without a ________________.
  22. He works in a ________________ mill.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — a straw man
  2. cold — not warm
  3. saw — the tool
  4. mate — to breed
  5. wind — moving air
  6. spring — a coil
  7. pass — to spend time
  8. wind — moving air
  9. mate — a friend
  10. saw — past of 'see'
  11. wind — to turn a key
  12. straw — dry grass
  13. bat — the animal
  14. cold — an illness
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. spring — the season
  17. mate — a partner
  18. straw — to clutch at straws
  19. bat — for baseball
  20. pass — to succeed
  21. pass — a permit
  22. saw — the tool
  23. spring — of water
  24. cold — the Cold War

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