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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: shower · bark · racket · cold · straw · capital · patient · spring

  1. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  2. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  3. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  4. I haven't touched a tennis ________________ in years.
  5. He hit the ball with his ________________.
  6. Our cat is sitting in the apple tree, and the birds are making a ________________.
  7. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  8. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  9. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  14. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  15. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  18. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  19. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  20. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  21. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  22. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  23. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  24. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bark — of a tree
  2. spring — a coil
  3. capital — a big letter
  4. racket — for tennis
  5. racket — for tennis
  6. racket — a loud noise
  7. bark — to shout
  8. patient — a sick person
  9. capital — money
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. spring — of water
  12. cold — not warm
  13. straw — dry grass
  14. shower — to wash
  15. patient — a sick person
  16. cold — an illness
  17. straw — to clutch at straws
  18. spring — the season
  19. straw — a straw man
  20. shower — rain
  21. capital — a city
  22. patient — calm and waiting
  23. bark — a dog's sound
  24. shower — a meteor shower

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