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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: capital · patient · cold · ground · lash · trunk · band · cell

  1. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  2. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  3. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  4. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  5. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  6. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  7. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  8. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  9. There's no middle ________________.
  10. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  11. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  12. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  17. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  18. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  19. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  20. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  21. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  24. He was locked up in a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. band — a ring
  2. capital — money
  3. cell — a phone
  4. ground — crushed
  5. capital — a city
  6. capital — a big letter
  7. lash — to lash out
  8. band — a rubber band
  9. ground — a position
  10. patient — calm and waiting
  11. patient — a sick person
  12. cell — in biology
  13. cold — an illness
  14. trunk — of a car
  15. cold — not warm
  16. lash — a whip stroke
  17. patient — a sick person
  18. ground — the earth
  19. band — a music group
  20. trunk — of an elephant
  21. lash — an eyelash
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. trunk — of a tree
  24. cell — in a prison

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