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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: capital · shower · tear · cold · craft · land · drill · wax

  1. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  4. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  7. When are we going to ________________?
  8. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  9. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  12. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  13. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  19. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  20. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  21. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  22. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  23. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  24. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.

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

Answer key

  1. craft — a skill
  2. cold — an illness
  3. craft — a handicraft
  4. shower — to wash
  5. cold — not warm
  6. wax — for sculpting
  7. land — to come down
  8. drill — the tool
  9. drill — a practice
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. tear — from crying
  12. wax — to grow
  13. capital — a city
  14. land — a country
  15. tear — to rip
  16. wax — in the ear
  17. shower — rain
  18. capital — money
  19. land — ground
  20. tear — from crying
  21. craft — boats
  22. capital — a big letter
  23. shower — a meteor shower
  24. drill — army training

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