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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 cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  8. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  9. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  10. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  11. The King held a masked ________________.
  12. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  13. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  14. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  15. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  16. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  17. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  18. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  19. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  20. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. The kitten curled into a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. tear — from crying
  2. cold — an illness
  3. spring — of water
  4. bat — the animal
  5. capital — a big letter
  6. cold — not warm
  7. ball — a great time
  8. cold — the Cold War
  9. cap — of ice
  10. tear — to rip
  11. ball — a dance
  12. kick — in football
  13. cap — a hat
  14. tear — from crying
  15. capital — money
  16. kick — a thrill
  17. cap — a lid
  18. bat — for baseball
  19. bat — in an idiom
  20. kick — with a leg
  21. spring — a coil
  22. spring — the season
  23. capital — a city
  24. ball — a round shape

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