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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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  3. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  4. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  5. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  6. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  7. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  8. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  9. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  10. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  11. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  14. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  15. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  16. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  17. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  20. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  21. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. The ________________ market has crashed.
  24. What's the difference between broth and ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. spring — the season
  3. stock — goods
  4. cold — the Cold War
  5. bass — low music
  6. bass — the instrument
  7. race — humankind
  8. squash — the vegetable
  9. content — videos and posts
  10. chip — in a computer
  11. squash — the sport
  12. cold — an illness
  13. spring — of water
  14. chip — to eat
  15. race — the arms race
  16. content — the amount
  17. bass — the fish
  18. spring — a coil
  19. race — a contest
  20. chip — for betting
  21. squash — to crush
  22. cold — not warm
  23. stock — shares
  24. stock — a soup base

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