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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 120 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: race · pass · land · content · cold · squash · drill · spell

  1. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  2. When are we going to ________________?
  3. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  4. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  5. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. How do you ________________ your surname?
  10. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  11. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  12. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  13. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  14. No doubt you will be able to ________________ the examination.
  15. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  16. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  17. You can't go backstage without a ________________.
  18. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  19. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  20. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  21. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  22. We wanted to take a walk to ________________ the time.
  23. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  24. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. squash — the sport
  2. land — to come down
  3. land — a country
  4. cold — the Cold War
  5. content — happy
  6. cold — not warm
  7. drill — a practice
  8. cold — an illness
  9. spell — letters
  10. land — ground
  11. content — the amount
  12. drill — army training
  13. squash — the vegetable
  14. pass — to succeed
  15. race — a contest
  16. race — humankind
  17. pass — a permit
  18. squash — to crush
  19. content — videos and posts
  20. spell — a short time
  21. race — the arms race
  22. pass — to spend time
  23. drill — the tool
  24. spell — magic

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