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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. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  2. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  3. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  6. Have you met the new head ________________?
  7. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  8. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  9. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  10. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  17. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  18. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  19. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  20. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  23. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — of water
  2. bear — to put up with
  3. coach — pulled by horses
  4. kid — to tease
  5. kid — child
  6. coach — a trainer
  7. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  8. field — for sport
  9. scale — size or range
  10. bear — the animal
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. spring — the season
  13. cold — not warm
  14. march — the month
  15. cold — an illness
  16. march — the month
  17. scale — in music
  18. scale — for weighing
  19. bear — the animal
  20. march — music
  21. field — a subject
  22. coach — a trainer
  23. spring — a coil
  24. field — farmland

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