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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: cold · game · spring · saw · prune · row · drill · ground

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  3. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  4. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  5. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  6. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. She's very handy with a ________________.
  9. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  10. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. That was a fun ________________.
  13. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  14. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  15. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  16. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  17. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  18. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  19. He works in a ________________ mill.
  20. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  21. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  22. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  23. There's no middle ________________.
  24. The flowers bloom in the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. row — a line
  3. row — a quarrel
  4. prune — to trim
  5. spring — of water
  6. drill — the tool
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. saw — the tool
  9. prune — to trim
  10. ground — the earth
  11. cold — an illness
  12. game — a match
  13. spring — a coil
  14. drill — army training
  15. game — a kind of play
  16. game — wild animals
  17. prune — the fruit
  18. row — to paddle
  19. saw — the tool
  20. drill — a practice
  21. ground — crushed
  22. saw — past of 'see'
  23. ground — a position
  24. spring — the season

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