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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: chair · court · tube · cell · tear · sharp · land · cold

  1. When are we going to ________________?
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. He was locked up in a ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. The ball is in your ________________.
  7. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  8. It's one o'clock ________________.
  9. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  10. I'll be taking the ________________.
  11. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  12. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  13. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  17. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  18. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  19. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  20. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  21. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. land — to come down
  2. tear — from crying
  3. cell — in a prison
  4. cold — an illness
  5. cold — not warm
  6. court — for sport
  7. court — of a king
  8. sharp — exactly
  9. land — ground
  10. tube — the underground
  11. chair — a professorship
  12. tube — in a tire
  13. court — of law
  14. land — a country
  15. tear — to rip
  16. sharp — clever
  17. chair — to sit on
  18. cell — a phone
  19. chair — a leader
  20. sharp — with an edge
  21. tube — a container
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. tear — from crying
  24. cell — in biology

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