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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: present · date · pop · fall · straw · drill · chest · cold

  1. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  4. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  5. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  6. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  7. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  8. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  9. Have you settled on a ________________?
  10. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  11. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  12. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. We're almost out of ________________.
  15. You don't need to ________________ round.
  16. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  17. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  18. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  19. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  20. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  23. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  24. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. present — a gift
  2. cold — an illness
  3. straw — dry grass
  4. pop — music
  5. drill — a practice
  6. chest — of your body
  7. chest — a box
  8. drill — the tool
  9. date — on the calendar
  10. fall — the season
  11. chest — of your body
  12. straw — to clutch at straws
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. pop — soda
  15. pop — to visit
  16. drill — army training
  17. straw — a straw man
  18. fall — to drop
  19. fall — to drop
  20. date — the fruit
  21. cold — not warm
  22. present — the time now
  23. present — there
  24. date — on the calendar

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