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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: press · pit · content · cold · drill · march · last · chair

  1. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  3. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  4. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  5. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  6. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  9. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  10. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. False peace will not ________________.
  13. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  14. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  15. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  16. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  19. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  20. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  21. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  22. Did you ________________ the button?
  23. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  24. Boris sat near the fire ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. march — music
  3. march — the month
  4. pit — a fruit stone
  5. press — a publisher
  6. drill — a practice
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. last — final
  9. last — finally
  10. press — newspapers
  11. cold — not warm
  12. last — to go on
  13. content — videos and posts
  14. drill — army training
  15. march — the month
  16. content — the amount
  17. cold — an illness
  18. chair — a professorship
  19. chair — a leader
  20. pit — in a race
  21. drill — the tool
  22. press — to push
  23. chair — to sit on
  24. pit — a hole

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