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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. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  2. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  3. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  4. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  5. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  8. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  9. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  10. False peace will not ________________.
  11. When are we going to ________________?
  12. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  13. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  16. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  17. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  18. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  19. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  22. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  23. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  24. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. march — the month
  2. net — after costs
  3. scale — size or range
  4. march — the month
  5. land — a country
  6. cold — not warm
  7. last — finally
  8. net — in sport
  9. march — music
  10. last — to go on
  11. land — to come down
  12. last — final
  13. race — humankind
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. shower — rain
  16. scale — in music
  17. net — for catching
  18. race — the arms race
  19. scale — for weighing
  20. cold — an illness
  21. shower — to wash
  22. race — a contest
  23. shower — a meteor shower
  24. land — ground

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