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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: chest · scale · pop · spring · file · shower · tear · cold

  1. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  2. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  3. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  4. We're almost out of ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  7. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  8. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  11. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  12. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  13. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. You don't need to ________________ round.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  20. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  21. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  22. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  23. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  24. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.

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

Answer key

  1. pop — music
  2. shower — rain
  3. tear — from crying
  4. pop — soda
  5. cold — an illness
  6. chest — a box
  7. scale — for weighing
  8. scale — in music
  9. tear — from crying
  10. spring — the season
  11. chest — of your body
  12. file — a tool
  13. shower — a meteor shower
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. shower — to wash
  16. file — a line of people
  17. pop — to visit
  18. cold — not warm
  19. scale — size or range
  20. tear — to rip
  21. chest — of your body
  22. spring — of water
  23. file — a document
  24. spring — a coil

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