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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 do anything ________________.
  2. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  3. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  4. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  5. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  8. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  9. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  14. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  15. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  16. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  17. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  18. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  19. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  20. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  21. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  22. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  23. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  24. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. rash — hasty
  2. staff — employees
  3. mine — for digging
  4. spring — the season
  5. capital — a big letter
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. wake — before a funeral
  8. mine — belonging to me
  9. wake — a trail
  10. cold — an illness
  11. staff — employees
  12. cold — not warm
  13. staff — a stick
  14. rash — a series
  15. content — the amount
  16. spring — a coil
  17. spring — of water
  18. content — happy
  19. capital — a city
  20. rash — on the skin
  21. wake — to stop sleeping
  22. content — videos and posts
  23. mine — an explosive
  24. capital — money

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

Make a worksheet (0 words)

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