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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. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  2. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  5. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  6. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  7. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  8. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  9. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. There's no middle ________________.
  12. He is an ace ________________.
  13. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  14. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. That was a fun ________________.
  17. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  18. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  19. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  20. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  21. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  22. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  23. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  24. The moon will ________________ and wane.

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

Answer key

  1. bowl — a football final
  2. pitcher — a jug
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. ground — crushed
  5. pitcher — a jug
  6. clip — for paper
  7. bowl — a dish
  8. ground — the earth
  9. bowl — to roll
  10. cold — not warm
  11. ground — a position
  12. pitcher — in baseball
  13. wax — in the ear
  14. chip — for betting
  15. cold — an illness
  16. game — a match
  17. clip — to cut
  18. clip — a video
  19. wax — for sculpting
  20. chip — to eat
  21. chip — in a computer
  22. game — wild animals
  23. game — a kind of play
  24. wax — to grow

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