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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 you need a ________________ with that?
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  4. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  5. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  6. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  7. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  8. That was a fun ________________.
  9. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  10. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  11. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  12. We're on a ________________ here.
  13. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  14. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  15. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  16. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  19. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  22. When are we going to ________________?
  23. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  24. I got dealt a bad ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. snap — to click
  4. face — part of the head
  5. roll — a cake
  6. hand — part of the body
  7. roll — a list
  8. game — a match
  9. face — to point toward
  10. spring — a coil
  11. snap — to speak sharply
  12. roll — on a roll
  13. spring — of water
  14. spring — the season
  15. snap — to snap out of it
  16. face — to confront
  17. cold — not warm
  18. game — wild animals
  19. land — ground
  20. cold — an illness
  21. land — a country
  22. land — to come down
  23. game — a kind of play
  24. hand — in cards

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