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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: wind · cold · land · row · wound · net · capital · straw

  1. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  2. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  3. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  4. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  8. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  9. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  10. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  11. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  12. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  13. When are we going to ________________?
  14. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  15. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  16. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  17. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  18. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  21. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  22. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  23. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. capital — money
  2. straw — to clutch at straws
  3. wind — to turn a key
  4. row — to paddle
  5. cold — not warm
  6. cold — an illness
  7. capital — a city
  8. wind — moving air
  9. land — ground
  10. net — in sport
  11. net — after costs
  12. wound — an injury
  13. land — to come down
  14. capital — a big letter
  15. wind — moving air
  16. straw — dry grass
  17. straw — a straw man
  18. row — a line
  19. wound — an injury
  20. net — for catching
  21. land — a country
  22. wound — past of 'wind'
  23. row — a quarrel
  24. cold — the Cold War

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