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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. I'll be taking the ________________.
  2. Hard work is the ________________ to success.
  3. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  7. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  8. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  9. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  10. Are you the only one who has a ________________ to this door?
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  13. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  14. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. This piece is in a major ________________.
  17. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  22. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  23. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  24. We had a fire ________________ at school today.

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

Answer key

  1. tube — the underground
  2. key — the most important part
  3. hand — in cards
  4. cold — not warm
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. field — farmland
  7. tube — in a tire
  8. spring — of water
  9. spring — a coil
  10. key — for a lock
  11. cold — an illness
  12. drill — the tool
  13. field — a subject
  14. drill — army training
  15. spring — the season
  16. key — in music
  17. field — for sport
  18. wind — moving air
  19. wind — moving air
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. hand — help
  22. wind — to turn a key
  23. tube — a container
  24. drill — a practice

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