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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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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 · kid · pitch · tube · capital · coach · ground · saw

  1. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  2. I'll be taking the ________________.
  3. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  4. She's very handy with a ________________.
  5. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  6. There's no middle ________________.
  7. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  8. Have you met the new head ________________?
  9. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  10. He works in a ________________ mill.
  11. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  12. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  13. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  17. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  18. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  19. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  20. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  21. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  22. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  23. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. coach — pulled by horses
  2. tube — the underground
  3. ground — crushed
  4. saw — the tool
  5. tube — a container
  6. ground — a position
  7. coach — a trainer
  8. coach — a trainer
  9. tube — in a tire
  10. saw — the tool
  11. saw — past of 'see'
  12. capital — money
  13. kid — to tease
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. cold — an illness
  16. pitch — a sales talk
  17. capital — a city
  18. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  19. pitch — completely
  20. kid — child
  21. ground — the earth
  22. pitch — a sports field
  23. capital — a big letter
  24. cold — not warm

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