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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: ground · tear · straw · cold · wax · content · drill · spring

  1. There's no middle ________________.
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  4. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  5. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  6. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  7. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  8. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  9. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  10. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  11. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  12. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  13. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  17. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  18. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  19. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  22. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  23. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. ground — a position
  2. content — happy
  3. wax — for sculpting
  4. straw — dry grass
  5. wax — to grow
  6. content — videos and posts
  7. wax — in the ear
  8. tear — from crying
  9. spring — of water
  10. drill — army training
  11. tear — from crying
  12. straw — to clutch at straws
  13. ground — crushed
  14. spring — a coil
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. tear — to rip
  17. drill — the tool
  18. spring — the season
  19. ground — the earth
  20. cold — an illness
  21. straw — a straw man
  22. content — the amount
  23. drill — a practice
  24. cold — not warm

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