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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. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  2. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  3. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  4. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  7. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  8. She's very handy with a ________________.
  9. There's no middle ________________.
  10. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  11. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  14. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  15. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  16. He works in a ________________ mill.
  17. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  18. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  21. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  22. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  23. We're on a ________________ here.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. roll — a cake
  2. wind — moving air
  3. ground — crushed
  4. saw — past of 'see'
  5. cold — an illness
  6. stem — to come from
  7. stem — of a plant
  8. saw — the tool
  9. ground — a position
  10. capital — a big letter
  11. wound — past of 'wind'
  12. cold — not warm
  13. ground — the earth
  14. stem — a stem cell
  15. roll — a list
  16. saw — the tool
  17. capital — money
  18. wind — moving air
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. wound — an injury
  21. capital — a city
  22. wound — an injury
  23. roll — on a roll
  24. cold — the Cold War

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