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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: trunk · march · tear · pit · land · mouse · chest · cold

  1. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  2. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  3. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  4. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  5. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  6. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  7. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  8. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  9. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  10. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  14. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  15. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  16. "I don't like games like this," squeaked the ________________.
  17. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  18. I thought I heard a ________________ in the kitchen.
  19. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  20. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  21. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  22. When are we going to ________________?
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. Should I buy a wireless ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. pit — a fruit stone
  2. trunk — of a car
  3. pit — a hole
  4. tear — from crying
  5. trunk — of an elephant
  6. chest — of your body
  7. land — ground
  8. march — music
  9. march — the month
  10. chest — of your body
  11. cold — an illness
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. trunk — of a tree
  14. pit — in a race
  15. tear — from crying
  16. mouse — the animal
  17. land — a country
  18. mouse — the animal
  19. chest — a box
  20. tear — to rip
  21. march — the month
  22. land — to come down
  23. cold — not warm
  24. mouse — for a computer

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