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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.

Make a worksheet

Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

Words on the sheet
468
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: straw · march · shower · game · drill · coach · file · cold

  1. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. That was a fun ________________.
  4. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  5. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  8. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  9. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  10. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  11. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  12. Have you met the new head ________________?
  13. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  17. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  18. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  19. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  20. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  21. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  22. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  23. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  24. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. coach — pulled by horses
  2. cold — not warm
  3. game — a match
  4. drill — a practice
  5. march — the month
  6. cold — an illness
  7. straw — dry grass
  8. straw — to clutch at straws
  9. game — a kind of play
  10. drill — army training
  11. file — a line of people
  12. coach — a trainer
  13. march — music
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. file — a tool
  16. shower — to wash
  17. shower — a meteor shower
  18. march — the month
  19. shower — rain
  20. coach — a trainer
  21. file — a document
  22. drill — the tool
  23. straw — a straw man
  24. game — wild animals

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