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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: hand · chip · spring · row · bowl · cold · fork · game

  1. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  2. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  3. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  4. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  5. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  6. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. That was a fun ________________.
  9. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  12. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  13. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  14. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  15. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  16. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  19. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  22. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — in cards
  2. bowl — to roll
  3. row — a quarrel
  4. fork — in a road
  5. bowl — a dish
  6. spring — the season
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. game — a match
  9. chip — to eat
  10. cold — an illness
  11. game — a kind of play
  12. bowl — a football final
  13. chip — for betting
  14. row — a line
  15. chip — in a computer
  16. hand — help
  17. cold — not warm
  18. fork — to eat with
  19. hand — part of the body
  20. spring — a coil
  21. fork — a garden tool
  22. game — wild animals
  23. spring — of water
  24. row — to paddle

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