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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. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  2. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  3. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  4. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. The King held a masked ________________.
  7. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  8. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  9. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  12. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  13. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  14. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  15. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  16. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  17. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  18. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  19. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  20. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  24. The flowers bloom in the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. prune — to trim
  2. row — a quarrel
  3. content — videos and posts
  4. row — to paddle
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. ball — a dance
  7. ball — a round shape
  8. row — a line
  9. content — happy
  10. file — a document
  11. spring — of water
  12. spring — a coil
  13. prune — to trim
  14. file — a line of people
  15. bat — for baseball
  16. bat — the animal
  17. content — the amount
  18. file — a tool
  19. bat — in an idiom
  20. prune — the fruit
  21. cold — not warm
  22. cold — an illness
  23. ball — a great time
  24. spring — the season

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