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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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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: straw · vault · cold · march · pit · land · file · wake

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. Champaud competed in the parallel bars, ________________, and pommel horse events.
  3. When are we going to ________________?
  4. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  7. The ceiling is a plaster ________________ painted with stars.
  8. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  9. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  12. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  13. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  18. Lukas kept the diamonds in a locked ________________.
  19. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  20. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  21. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  24. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. vault — in gymnastics
  3. land — to come down
  4. wake — to stop sleeping
  5. cold — an illness
  6. straw — to clutch at straws
  7. vault — an arched ceiling
  8. land — ground
  9. straw — a straw man
  10. file — a document
  11. file — a tool
  12. pit — a hole
  13. march — music
  14. land — a country
  15. pit — a fruit stone
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. wake — before a funeral
  18. vault — a safe
  19. march — the month
  20. march — the month
  21. pit — in a race
  22. file — a line of people
  23. wake — a trail
  24. straw — dry grass

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