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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. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  2. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  3. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  6. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  7. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  8. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  9. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  10. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  11. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  12. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  15. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  16. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  17. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  18. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  23. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. capital — a city
  2. bowl — a dish
  3. file — a tool
  4. cold — an illness
  5. scale — in music
  6. bowl — a football final
  7. stem — of a plant
  8. bark — of a tree
  9. bark — a dog's sound
  10. kick — with a leg
  11. bark — to shout
  12. capital — a big letter
  13. cold — not warm
  14. stem — a stem cell
  15. bowl — to roll
  16. scale — size or range
  17. file — a document
  18. kick — in football
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. scale — for weighing
  21. capital — money
  22. kick — a thrill
  23. stem — to come from
  24. file — a line of people

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