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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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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: mate · chest · wax · roll · shower · capital · wind · date

  1. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  2. We're on a ________________ here.
  3. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  4. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  5. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  6. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  7. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  8. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  9. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  10. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  11. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  12. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  15. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  16. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  17. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  18. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  21. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  22. Have you found your soul ________________?
  23. Have you settled on a ________________?
  24. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.

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

Answer key

  1. wax — for sculpting
  2. roll — on a roll
  3. wax — in the ear
  4. shower — to wash
  5. mate — a friend
  6. chest — a box
  7. chest — of your body
  8. date — the fruit
  9. roll — a list
  10. wind — moving air
  11. capital — a big letter
  12. chest — of your body
  13. shower — rain
  14. mate — to breed
  15. date — on the calendar
  16. wax — to grow
  17. roll — a cake
  18. capital — a city
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. shower — a meteor shower
  21. capital — money
  22. mate — a partner
  23. date — on the calendar
  24. wind — moving air

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