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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: season · kid · march · bat · cold · drill · rock · snap

  1. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  2. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  3. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  4. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  5. We were using a ________________ as a seat.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  8. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  9. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  13. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  14. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  15. Which do you like better, ________________ music or classical music?
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. I don't want to ________________ the boat.
  18. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  19. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  20. Did you ________________ the meat?
  21. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  22. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  23. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  24. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — child
  2. march — the month
  3. kid — to tease
  4. snap — to click
  5. rock — a stone
  6. cold — an illness
  7. bat — in an idiom
  8. march — the month
  9. drill — the tool
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. cold — not warm
  12. march — music
  13. bat — for baseball
  14. drill — a practice
  15. rock — music
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. rock — to move gently
  18. snap — to speak sharply
  19. season — of the year
  20. season — to add flavour
  21. drill — army training
  22. snap — to snap out of it
  23. bat — the animal
  24. season — in sport

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