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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. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  2. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  3. Have you found your soul ________________?
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. The ball is in your ________________.
  6. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  7. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  8. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  9. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  10. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  11. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  15. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  16. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  17. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  18. When are we going to ________________?
  19. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  20. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  21. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  22. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  23. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  24. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. face — to confront
  2. mate — a friend
  3. mate — a partner
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. court — for sport
  6. land — a country
  7. band — a ring
  8. file — a line of people
  9. court — of law
  10. band — a music group
  11. file — a document
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. cold — not warm
  14. land — ground
  15. drill — a practice
  16. court — of a king
  17. face — to point toward
  18. land — to come down
  19. face — part of the head
  20. drill — the tool
  21. cold — an illness
  22. drill — army training
  23. mate — to breed
  24. file — a tool

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