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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: hand · race · cold · scale · spring · pitch · wind · spell

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. How do you ________________ your surname?
  3. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  4. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  5. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  6. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  7. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  8. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  9. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  10. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  11. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  12. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  13. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  14. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  15. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  19. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  20. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  21. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  22. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. spell — letters
  3. race — the arms race
  4. wind — to turn a key
  5. hand — in cards
  6. spring — a coil
  7. wind — moving air
  8. spell — a short time
  9. hand — help
  10. hand — part of the body
  11. pitch — completely
  12. wind — moving air
  13. race — a contest
  14. pitch — a sports field
  15. scale — size or range
  16. spring — the season
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. spell — magic
  19. scale — in music
  20. pitch — a sales talk
  21. cold — an illness
  22. scale — for weighing
  23. spring — of water
  24. race — humankind

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