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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. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  3. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  4. He works in a ________________ mill.
  5. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. She's very handy with a ________________.
  10. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  11. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  12. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  13. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  14. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  15. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  16. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  17. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  18. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  19. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  20. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  21. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  24. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. hand — part of the body
  3. spring — of water
  4. saw — the tool
  5. row — a quarrel
  6. cold — an illness
  7. row — to paddle
  8. hand — help
  9. saw — the tool
  10. chip — to eat
  11. hand — in cards
  12. spring — a coil
  13. file — a tool
  14. file — a line of people
  15. chip — for betting
  16. row — a line
  17. stem — a stem cell
  18. file — a document
  19. stem — to come from
  20. spring — the season
  21. chip — in a computer
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. stem — of a plant
  24. saw — past of 'see'

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