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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: fork · lie · cell · hand · content · cold · capital · game

  1. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  2. The hunter does not ________________ down with the prey.
  3. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  6. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  7. He was locked up in a ________________.
  8. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  9. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  10. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  11. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  12. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  13. Is it always a sin to tell a ________________?
  14. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  15. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  16. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  17. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  18. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  19. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. A ________________ is a veil over the lips.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  24. That was a fun ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. fork — a garden tool
  2. lie — to recline
  3. content — videos and posts
  4. cold — an illness
  5. content — happy
  6. capital — a city
  7. cell — in a prison
  8. content — the amount
  9. hand — in cards
  10. hand — part of the body
  11. fork — in a road
  12. game — wild animals
  13. lie — an untruth
  14. fork — to eat with
  15. capital — money
  16. cell — a phone
  17. capital — a big letter
  18. game — a kind of play
  19. hand — help
  20. cold — not warm
  21. lie — an untruth
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. cell — in biology
  24. game — a match

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