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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: press · craft · land · bat · cold · race · rash · file

  1. Did you ________________ the button?
  2. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  3. When are we going to ________________?
  4. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  9. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  10. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  11. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  12. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  13. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  16. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  17. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  18. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  19. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  20. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  21. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. Don't do anything ________________.
  24. I seem to be developing a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. press — to push
  2. bat — in an idiom
  3. land — to come down
  4. race — a contest
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. file — a tool
  7. cold — an illness
  8. bat — the animal
  9. craft — a handicraft
  10. land — ground
  11. race — the arms race
  12. rash — a series
  13. craft — a skill
  14. land — a country
  15. file — a line of people
  16. press — newspapers
  17. race — humankind
  18. craft — boats
  19. bat — for baseball
  20. press — a publisher
  21. file — a document
  22. cold — not warm
  23. rash — hasty
  24. rash — on the skin

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