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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 116 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: straw · bank · court · file · race · cold · content · tear

  1. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  3. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  4. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  5. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  6. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  7. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  8. This ________________ always watches out for its own interests.
  9. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  10. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  11. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  14. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  15. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  16. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  17. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  18. The ball is in your ________________.
  19. I'm going to the ________________ to withdraw money.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  22. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  23. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  24. Tiny blossoms have come out all over the river ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. race — humankind
  3. straw — a straw man
  4. cold — the Cold War
  5. straw — to clutch at straws
  6. file — a line of people
  7. race — a contest
  8. bank — for money
  9. file — a tool
  10. court — of law
  11. straw — dry grass
  12. cold — an illness
  13. tear — from crying
  14. tear — to rip
  15. tear — from crying
  16. content — the amount
  17. content — videos and posts
  18. court — for sport
  19. bank — for money
  20. cold — not warm
  21. court — of a king
  22. race — the arms race
  23. file — a document
  24. bank — of a river

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