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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: bowl · fall · present · mine · cold · chair · capital · hand

  1. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  2. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  3. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  4. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  7. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  8. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  9. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  10. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  13. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  14. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  15. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  16. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  17. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  18. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  19. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  20. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  23. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  24. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. fall — to drop
  2. present — a gift
  3. capital — a city
  4. bowl — a football final
  5. cold — an illness
  6. chair — to sit on
  7. chair — a leader
  8. present — the time now
  9. capital — money
  10. bowl — to roll
  11. cold — not warm
  12. present — there
  13. chair — a professorship
  14. bowl — a dish
  15. hand — in cards
  16. capital — a big letter
  17. mine — an explosive
  18. fall — the season
  19. fall — to drop
  20. mine — belonging to me
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. mine — for digging
  23. hand — help
  24. hand — part of the body

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