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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. The water is too ________________.
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  4. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  5. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  6. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  7. There's no middle ________________.
  8. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  9. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  10. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  11. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  18. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  19. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  20. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  21. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  22. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  23. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  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. cold — not warm
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. fork — a garden tool
  4. straw — a straw man
  5. fork — to eat with
  6. hide — animal skin
  7. ground — a position
  8. straw — dry grass
  9. ground — crushed
  10. mine — belonging to me
  11. mine — for digging
  12. kid — child
  13. bat — in an idiom
  14. cold — an illness
  15. kid — to tease
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. straw — to clutch at straws
  18. fork — in a road
  19. hide — to keep secret
  20. hide — to keep secret
  21. bat — for baseball
  22. mine — an explosive
  23. ground — the earth
  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