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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 116 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 moon will ________________ and wane.
  2. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  3. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  4. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  5. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  6. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  7. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  8. How do you ________________ your surname?
  9. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  10. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  11. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  12. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  13. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  14. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  15. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  21. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  22. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.

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

Answer key

  1. wax — to grow
  2. hand — in cards
  3. spell — a short time
  4. wake — before a funeral
  5. file — a line of people
  6. hand — part of the body
  7. file — a tool
  8. spell — letters
  9. spell — magic
  10. bat — the animal
  11. wake — to stop sleeping
  12. cap — a hat
  13. wax — for sculpting
  14. wake — a trail
  15. cap — of ice
  16. cold — an illness
  17. file — a document
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. cold — not warm
  20. cap — a lid
  21. hand — help
  22. wax — in the ear
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. bat — in an idiom

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