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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. I'll be taking the ________________.
  2. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  3. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. That was a fun ________________.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  9. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  10. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  11. We're almost out of ________________.
  12. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  13. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  14. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. The ________________ market has crashed.
  18. You don't need to ________________ round.
  19. When are we going to ________________?
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  22. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  23. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  24. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.

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

Answer key

  1. tube — the underground
  2. tube — a container
  3. land — a country
  4. game — wild animals
  5. cold — an illness
  6. game — a match
  7. cold — not warm
  8. land — ground
  9. spring — the season
  10. pop — music
  11. pop — soda
  12. shower — rain
  13. spring — of water
  14. tube — in a tire
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. stock — shares
  18. pop — to visit
  19. land — to come down
  20. spring — a coil
  21. shower — to wash
  22. stock — a soup base
  23. stock — goods
  24. game — a kind of play

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