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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. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  4. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  5. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  6. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  7. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  8. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  9. That was ________________ to happen.
  10. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  11. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  12. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  13. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  14. He was locked up in a ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  19. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  20. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  21. That must've been a ________________.
  22. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.

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

Answer key

  1. capital — a city
  2. cold — an illness
  3. row — a quarrel
  4. row — a line
  5. row — to paddle
  6. bound — tied together
  7. cell — a phone
  8. cell — in biology
  9. bound — certain
  10. spring — of water
  11. rush — to hurry
  12. rush — hurry
  13. capital — money
  14. cell — in a prison
  15. cold — not warm
  16. capital — a big letter
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. spring — the season
  19. spring — a coil
  20. bound — obliged
  21. rush — a thrill
  22. bat — the animal
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. bat — in an idiom

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