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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. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  2. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  3. We're on a ________________ here.
  4. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  5. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  8. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  9. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  10. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  11. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  14. False peace will not ________________.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  17. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  18. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  19. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  20. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  21. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. craft — boats
  2. craft — a handicraft
  3. roll — on a roll
  4. branch — a division
  5. roll — a list
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. hand — help
  8. craft — a skill
  9. chest — of your body
  10. bat — the animal
  11. hand — part of the body
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. roll — a cake
  14. last — to go on
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. last — final
  17. chest — a box
  18. branch — of a tree
  19. branch — of a bank
  20. chest — of your body
  21. hand — in cards
  22. cold — an illness
  23. last — finally
  24. cold — not warm

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