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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. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  2. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  3. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  4. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  5. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  6. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  7. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  8. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  9. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  12. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  15. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  16. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  17. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  20. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  23. There's no middle ________________.
  24. He was locked up in a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bowl — a dish
  2. capital — a city
  3. squash — the sport
  4. cap — a hat
  5. cell — in biology
  6. capital — a big letter
  7. bowl — a football final
  8. file — a document
  9. bowl — to roll
  10. cold — an illness
  11. ground — the earth
  12. cell — a phone
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. squash — to crush
  15. squash — the vegetable
  16. cap — of ice
  17. cap — a lid
  18. cold — not warm
  19. file — a tool
  20. file — a line of people
  21. capital — money
  22. ground — crushed
  23. ground — a position
  24. cell — in a prison

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