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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 116 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: cold · bat · capital · stem · kid · wind

  1. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  2. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  8. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  9. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  12. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  13. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  14. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  15. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  16. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  17. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  18. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. capital — a city
  2. kid — child
  3. bat — the animal
  4. cold — an illness
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  8. kid — to tease
  9. bat — for baseball
  10. cold — not warm
  11. wind — moving air
  12. wind — moving air
  13. bat — in an idiom
  14. capital — a big letter
  15. stem — to come from
  16. stem — of a plant
  17. stem — a stem cell
  18. capital — money

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