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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 116 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. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  2. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  3. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  8. Have you met the new head ________________?
  9. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  10. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  11. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  12. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  13. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  14. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  17. Borders were drawn on the map using a ________________, with no regard for cultural realities on the ground.
  18. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  19. A ________________ helps one to draw a straight line.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  22. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  23. The people resisted their cruel ________________.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. fan — a supporter
  2. march — music
  3. coach — pulled by horses
  4. file — a tool
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. cold — not warm
  7. wound — an injury
  8. coach — a trainer
  9. spring — the season
  10. fan — a supporter
  11. wound — past of 'wind'
  12. file — a document
  13. fan — to cool the air
  14. coach — a trainer
  15. cold — an illness
  16. march — the month
  17. ruler — for measuring
  18. wound — an injury
  19. ruler — for measuring
  20. spring — a coil
  21. march — the month
  22. spring — of water
  23. ruler — a monarch
  24. file — a line of people

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