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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 · bulb · cap · band · march · wind · kid · spring

  1. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  2. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  3. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  6. I've got to change the light ________________.
  7. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  8. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  9. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  10. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  13. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  14. The light ________________ burned out.
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  18. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  19. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  20. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  21. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.
  22. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  2. cap — a lid
  3. wind — moving air
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. cap — of ice
  6. bulb — for light
  7. kid — to tease
  8. cold — the Cold War
  9. kid — child
  10. band — a music group
  11. cold — an illness
  12. wind — to turn a key
  13. march — music
  14. bulb — for light
  15. spring — a coil
  16. cold — not warm
  17. band — a ring
  18. march — the month
  19. march — the month
  20. spring — the season
  21. bulb — of a plant
  22. wind — moving air
  23. spring — of water
  24. cap — a hat

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