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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: kid · race · hide · cold · spring · bark · last · wax

  1. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  2. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  3. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  4. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  7. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  8. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  9. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  10. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  11. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  12. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  13. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  14. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  15. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  18. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  19. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  20. False peace will not ________________.
  21. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  22. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  23. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  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. bark — of a tree
  2. bark — a dog's sound
  3. cold — an illness
  4. last — final
  5. cold — not warm
  6. bark — to shout
  7. hide — to keep secret
  8. spring — the season
  9. hide — to keep secret
  10. last — finally
  11. wax — to grow
  12. spring — of water
  13. wax — in the ear
  14. race — a contest
  15. race — the arms race
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. hide — animal skin
  18. kid — to tease
  19. kid — child
  20. last — to go on
  21. race — humankind
  22. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  23. wax — for sculpting
  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