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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: last · file · content · lean · fall · cold · chair · race

  1. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  2. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  3. Vegetables slowly ________________ towards the light.
  4. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  5. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  6. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  7. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  8. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  9. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  10. False peace will not ________________.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  14. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  15. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  16. He is as ________________ as a wolf.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  19. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  20. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  21. Don't ________________ against the wall. It's just been painted.
  22. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.

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

Answer key

  1. content — videos and posts
  2. chair — a professorship
  3. lean — to bend
  4. content — happy
  5. fall — the season
  6. race — a contest
  7. fall — to drop
  8. last — finally
  9. content — the amount
  10. last — to go on
  11. cold — not warm
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. file — a tool
  14. chair — to sit on
  15. last — final
  16. lean — thin
  17. file — a line of people
  18. race — the arms race
  19. race — humankind
  20. fall — to drop
  21. lean — to rest against
  22. chair — a leader
  23. cold — an illness
  24. file — a document

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