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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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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: cold · shower · roll · object · fall · wind · chest · file

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  3. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  4. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  5. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  6. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  9. Why would I ________________ to a disabled ramp?
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  12. We're on a ________________ here.
  13. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  14. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  15. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  16. Thanks to his efforts, he attained his ________________.
  17. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  18. A valuable ________________ decreases in value if it is damaged.
  19. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  20. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  21. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  22. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  23. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  24. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. fall — to drop
  3. file — a line of people
  4. shower — a meteor shower
  5. chest — of your body
  6. shower — to wash
  7. cold — not warm
  8. roll — a cake
  9. object — to protest
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. shower — rain
  12. roll — on a roll
  13. wind — to turn a key
  14. fall — to drop
  15. file — a document
  16. object — an aim
  17. chest — a box
  18. object — a thing
  19. fall — the season
  20. wind — moving air
  21. roll — a list
  22. file — a tool
  23. chest — of your body
  24. wind — moving air

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