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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: game · cold · ground · roll · tube · branch · march · straw

  1. There's no middle ________________.
  2. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  5. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  6. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  7. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  8. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  9. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  10. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  11. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  12. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  16. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  17. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  18. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  19. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  20. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  21. I'll be taking the ________________.
  22. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  23. That was a fun ________________.
  24. We're on a ________________ here.

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

Answer key

  1. ground — a position
  2. ground — crushed
  3. cold — not warm
  4. branch — of a bank
  5. branch — a division
  6. game — wild animals
  7. straw — to clutch at straws
  8. roll — a cake
  9. tube — in a tire
  10. roll — a list
  11. straw — a straw man
  12. march — the month
  13. cold — an illness
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. march — music
  16. straw — dry grass
  17. tube — a container
  18. branch — of a tree
  19. game — a kind of play
  20. ground — the earth
  21. tube — the underground
  22. march — the month
  23. game — a match
  24. roll — on a roll

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