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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: rash · chair · mine · tear · bat · capital · wave · shower

  1. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. A lot of friends came to ________________ goodbye to me.
  3. Don't do anything ________________.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  6. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  7. I am seized by an uncontrollable ________________ of sadness.
  8. The surfers were looking for the perfect ________________.
  9. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  10. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  13. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  14. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  15. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  16. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  17. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  18. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  19. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  20. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  21. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  22. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. wave — with your hand
  3. rash — hasty
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. rash — a series
  6. chair — a leader
  7. wave — a sudden rise
  8. wave — of the sea
  9. capital — a big letter
  10. rash — on the skin
  11. bat — the animal
  12. tear — from crying
  13. tear — from crying
  14. shower — rain
  15. mine — an explosive
  16. capital — money
  17. bat — for baseball
  18. shower — a meteor shower
  19. mine — for digging
  20. tear — to rip
  21. chair — to sit on
  22. chair — a professorship
  23. capital — a city
  24. mine — belonging to me

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