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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: chest · kid · bulb · drill · trunk · capital · cold · file

  1. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.
  2. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  3. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  4. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  5. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  6. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  7. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  8. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  12. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  13. The light ________________ burned out.
  14. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  15. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  16. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  17. I've got to change the light ________________.
  18. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  19. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  22. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  23. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  24. The elephant has a huge ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bulb — of a plant
  2. capital — a big letter
  3. capital — a city
  4. chest — of your body
  5. file — a line of people
  6. file — a document
  7. drill — the tool
  8. chest — a box
  9. cold — an illness
  10. cold — not warm
  11. drill — army training
  12. kid — to tease
  13. bulb — for light
  14. trunk — of a tree
  15. chest — of your body
  16. capital — money
  17. bulb — for light
  18. trunk — of a car
  19. kid — child
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. file — a tool
  22. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  23. drill — a practice
  24. trunk — of an elephant

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