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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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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: row · ball · rule · shower · cold · chip · capital · spring

  1. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  2. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  3. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  4. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  5. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  6. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  7. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  12. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  13. The King held a masked ________________.
  14. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  15. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  16. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  17. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  18. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  19. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  23. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  24. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.

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

Answer key

  1. ball — a great time
  2. rule — government
  3. spring — the season
  4. shower — rain
  5. spring — of water
  6. capital — a big letter
  7. shower — a meteor shower
  8. cold — an illness
  9. capital — a city
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. row — a quarrel
  12. chip — in a computer
  13. ball — a dance
  14. rule — a law
  15. ball — a round shape
  16. chip — to eat
  17. rule — to rule out
  18. shower — to wash
  19. capital — money
  20. cold — not warm
  21. spring — a coil
  22. row — a line
  23. row — to paddle
  24. chip — for betting

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