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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 120 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. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  2. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  3. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  4. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  5. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  8. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  9. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  10. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  11. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  12. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  13. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  16. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  19. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  20. There's no middle ________________.
  21. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  22. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. wind — to turn a key
  2. fan — a supporter
  3. pitch — a sales talk
  4. ground — crushed
  5. wind — moving air
  6. cold — not warm
  7. march — the month
  8. stem — a stem cell
  9. pitch — completely
  10. march — the month
  11. ground — the earth
  12. fan — to cool the air
  13. wind — moving air
  14. bat — the animal
  15. stem — to come from
  16. fan — a supporter
  17. cold — an illness
  18. bat — for baseball
  19. pitch — a sports field
  20. ground — a position
  21. bat — in an idiom
  22. march — music
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. stem — of a plant

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