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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  3. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  8. She's very handy with a ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. He works in a ________________ mill.
  11. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  14. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  15. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  18. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  19. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  20. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  21. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  22. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  23. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  24. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. spring — of water
  3. stem — to come from
  4. cold — not warm
  5. wound — past of 'wind'
  6. cold — an illness
  7. spring — the season
  8. saw — the tool
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. saw — the tool
  11. hand — help
  12. hand — in cards
  13. wound — an injury
  14. hand — part of the body
  15. saw — past of 'see'
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. stem — a stem cell
  18. kid — child
  19. content — videos and posts
  20. content — happy
  21. wound — an injury
  22. spring — a coil
  23. content — the amount
  24. stem — of a plant

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