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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 120 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: cold · land · hand · ball · bark · file · wax · wake

  1. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  2. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  3. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  7. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  12. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  15. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  16. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  17. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  18. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  21. When are we going to ________________?
  22. The King held a masked ________________.
  23. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  24. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.

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

Answer key

  1. wax — for sculpting
  2. wake — a trail
  3. land — a country
  4. cold — not warm
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. file — a tool
  7. hand — in cards
  8. hand — help
  9. wax — to grow
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. bark — of a tree
  12. file — a line of people
  13. cold — an illness
  14. file — a document
  15. land — ground
  16. bark — to shout
  17. wax — in the ear
  18. ball — a round shape
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. wake — to stop sleeping
  21. land — to come down
  22. ball — a dance
  23. wake — before a funeral
  24. ball — a great time

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