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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. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  3. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  4. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  5. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  6. False peace will not ________________.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  11. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  12. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  13. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  14. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  17. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  18. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  22. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  23. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  24. Have you settled on a ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. date — on the calendar
  3. date — the fruit
  4. wind — moving air
  5. race — a contest
  6. last — to go on
  7. cold — an illness
  8. chip — to eat
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. spring — a coil
  11. race — the arms race
  12. last — finally
  13. last — final
  14. chip — for betting
  15. spring — the season
  16. wind — moving air
  17. spring — of water
  18. wind — to turn a key
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. cold — not warm
  21. chip — in a computer
  22. shower — rain
  23. race — humankind
  24. date — on the calendar

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