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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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Word bank
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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word from the word bank in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

Word bank: wind · bowl · prune · cold · chest · chair

  1. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  2. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  3. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  4. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  7. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  8. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  13. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  14. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  15. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  16. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  17. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  18. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.

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

Answer key

  1. bowl — a dish
  2. chair — a professorship
  3. prune — to trim
  4. prune — the fruit
  5. cold — an illness
  6. wind — moving air
  7. chair — a leader
  8. chest — of your body
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. wind — moving air
  11. cold — not warm
  12. prune — to trim
  13. wind — to turn a key
  14. chest — a box
  15. chair — to sit on
  16. bowl — to roll
  17. bowl — a football final
  18. chest — of your body

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