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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: face · drill · spring · field · straw · cold · row · tear

  1. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  2. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  6. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  7. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  8. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  9. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  10. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  11. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  12. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  13. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  14. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  15. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  20. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  21. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  22. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  23. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  24. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.

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

Answer key

  1. face — part of the head
  2. spring — a coil
  3. cold — not warm
  4. cold — an illness
  5. row — to paddle
  6. field — farmland
  7. tear — to rip
  8. tear — from crying
  9. drill — army training
  10. straw — to clutch at straws
  11. tear — from crying
  12. straw — a straw man
  13. face — to confront
  14. drill — a practice
  15. spring — of water
  16. field — for sport
  17. straw — dry grass
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. drill — the tool
  20. spring — the season
  21. row — a line
  22. row — a quarrel
  23. field — a subject
  24. face — to point toward

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