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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: pitcher · pop · bat · chest · cold · fall · cap · date

  1. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  2. You don't need to ________________ round.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  5. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  6. He is an ace ________________.
  7. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  8. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  9. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  10. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  11. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  14. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  15. Have you settled on a ________________?
  16. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  19. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  20. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. We're almost out of ________________.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. pitcher — a jug
  2. pop — to visit
  3. bat — the animal
  4. cap — a lid
  5. fall — to drop
  6. pitcher — in baseball
  7. pop — music
  8. chest — of your body
  9. chest — a box
  10. bat — for baseball
  11. bat — in an idiom
  12. cold — not warm
  13. cap — of ice
  14. cap — a hat
  15. date — on the calendar
  16. fall — to drop
  17. fall — the season
  18. date — the fruit
  19. date — on the calendar
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. pop — soda
  23. cold — an illness
  24. chest — of your body

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