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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: row · cold · cell · wax · march · chest · saw · bat

  1. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  2. He works in a ________________ mill.
  3. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  4. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  5. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  6. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  7. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  8. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  9. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  10. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  11. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  12. She's very handy with a ________________.
  13. He was locked up in a ________________.
  14. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  15. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  16. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  17. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  18. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  19. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  20. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  21. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  22. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. row — to paddle
  2. saw — the tool
  3. cold — an illness
  4. row — a line
  5. wax — to grow
  6. chest — of your body
  7. chest — of your body
  8. march — the month
  9. wax — for sculpting
  10. saw — past of 'see'
  11. march — the month
  12. saw — the tool
  13. cell — in a prison
  14. bat — for baseball
  15. row — a quarrel
  16. bat — in an idiom
  17. march — music
  18. cell — in biology
  19. chest — a box
  20. bat — the animal
  21. wax — in the ear
  22. cell — a phone
  23. cold — not warm
  24. cold — the Cold War

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