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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. Which do you like better, ________________ music or classical music?
  2. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  3. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  4. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  5. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  6. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  7. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  8. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  9. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  10. I don't want to ________________ the boat.
  11. We were using a ________________ as a seat.
  12. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  13. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  14. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  15. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  16. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  19. False peace will not ________________.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  22. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.

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

Answer key

  1. rock — music
  2. last — finally
  3. bass — the instrument
  4. bass — the fish
  5. capital — a big letter
  6. club — for dancing
  7. club — for golf
  8. bat — in an idiom
  9. capital — money
  10. rock — to move gently
  11. rock — a stone
  12. shower — a meteor shower
  13. capital — a city
  14. last — final
  15. club — a group
  16. bass — low music
  17. cold — an illness
  18. shower — to wash
  19. last — to go on
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. shower — rain
  22. bat — for baseball
  23. cold — not warm
  24. bat — the animal

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