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

Word bank: straw · press · chest · spring · cold · cell

  1. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  2. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. Did you ________________ the button?
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  7. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  8. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  9. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  12. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  13. He was locked up in a ________________.
  14. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  15. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  16. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  17. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  18. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — of water
  2. cell — a phone
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. press — to push
  5. cold — an illness
  6. spring — the season
  7. straw — to clutch at straws
  8. straw — a straw man
  9. spring — a coil
  10. cold — not warm
  11. straw — dry grass
  12. cell — in biology
  13. cell — in a prison
  14. press — a publisher
  15. chest — a box
  16. chest — of your body
  17. press — newspapers
  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