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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: shower · bark · snap · stock · coach · land · cold · chip

  1. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  5. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  6. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  7. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  10. Have you met the new head ________________?
  11. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  14. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  17. When are we going to ________________?
  18. The ________________ market has crashed.
  19. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  20. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  21. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  22. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  23. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  24. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.

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

Answer key

  1. coach — pulled by horses
  2. shower — to wash
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. snap — to click
  5. snap — to snap out of it
  6. stock — a soup base
  7. chip — for betting
  8. cold — an illness
  9. bark — of a tree
  10. coach — a trainer
  11. chip — to eat
  12. cold — not warm
  13. stock — goods
  14. shower — rain
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. bark — to shout
  17. land — to come down
  18. stock — shares
  19. snap — to speak sharply
  20. land — ground
  21. chip — in a computer
  22. bark — a dog's sound
  23. coach — a trainer
  24. land — a country

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