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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: land · last · row · cold · content · temple · stem · cell

  1. Your daily life is your ________________ and your religion.
  2. A trickle of blood ran from her ________________ down her cheek.
  3. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  6. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  7. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  10. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  11. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  12. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  13. He was locked up in a ________________.
  14. False peace will not ________________.
  15. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  16. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  17. When was this ________________ built?
  18. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  21. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  22. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  23. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  24. When are we going to ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. temple — a place of worship
  2. temple — side of the head
  3. stem — a stem cell
  4. cold — not warm
  5. row — a quarrel
  6. content — happy
  7. last — final
  8. cold — an illness
  9. row — to paddle
  10. row — a line
  11. last — finally
  12. land — a country
  13. cell — in a prison
  14. last — to go on
  15. cell — a phone
  16. content — videos and posts
  17. temple — a place of worship
  18. content — the amount
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. stem — of a plant
  21. cell — in biology
  22. stem — to come from
  23. land — ground
  24. land — to come down

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