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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. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  3. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  6. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  7. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  8. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. False peace will not ________________.
  11. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  12. That was a fun ________________.
  13. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  17. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  18. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  19. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  22. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  23. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  24. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. chair — a leader
  3. last — finally
  4. game — wild animals
  5. fork — a garden tool
  6. chair — a professorship
  7. fork — in a road
  8. drill — a practice
  9. clip — to cut
  10. last — to go on
  11. drill — army training
  12. game — a match
  13. last — final
  14. cold — not warm
  15. spring — a coil
  16. clip — for paper
  17. drill — the tool
  18. game — a kind of play
  19. clip — a video
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. spring — the season
  22. fork — to eat with
  23. chair — to sit on
  24. spring — of water

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