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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 116 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: hand · last · game · shower · board · spring · prune · file

  1. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  2. I'm currently on the ________________ of directors.
  3. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  6. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  7. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  8. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  9. The captain is giving the order to ________________ the ship.
  10. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  11. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  12. That was a fun ________________.
  13. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  14. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  17. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  18. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. ________________ games are popular in Germany.
  21. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  22. False peace will not ________________.
  23. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. last — final
  2. board — a committee
  3. shower — to wash
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. game — wild animals
  6. prune — the fruit
  7. spring — of water
  8. hand — in cards
  9. board — to get on
  10. prune — to trim
  11. file — a document
  12. game — a match
  13. hand — help
  14. spring — the season
  15. spring — a coil
  16. file — a tool
  17. last — finally
  18. game — a kind of play
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. board — a flat piece
  21. prune — to trim
  22. last — to go on
  23. shower — rain
  24. file — a line of people

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