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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: track · foot · wound · file · hand · row · cold · race

  1. Heather can grow to a ________________ or so tall.
  2. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  3. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  8. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  9. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  10. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  11. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  14. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  15. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  16. I have a corn on my right ________________.
  17. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  18. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.
  19. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  20. The newcomer sat down at the ________________ of the table.
  21. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  24. I got dealt a bad ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. foot — a measure
  2. race — a contest
  3. file — a tool
  4. hand — help
  5. track — to keep track
  6. cold — not warm
  7. row — a quarrel
  8. hand — part of the body
  9. wound — past of 'wind'
  10. file — a line of people
  11. wound — an injury
  12. cold — an illness
  13. track — a path
  14. race — the arms race
  15. row — to paddle
  16. foot — part of the body
  17. file — a document
  18. track — a song
  19. row — a line
  20. foot — the bottom
  21. race — humankind
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. wound — an injury
  24. hand — in cards

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