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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: tear · cold · tube · row · drill · fork · bark · bat

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  5. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  6. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  7. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  8. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  9. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  12. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  13. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  14. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  15. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  16. I'll be taking the ________________.
  17. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  18. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  19. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  20. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  23. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  24. I had a ________________ with my boss today.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. row — a line
  3. cold — not warm
  4. fork — in a road
  5. tear — from crying
  6. bat — the animal
  7. row — to paddle
  8. fork — to eat with
  9. drill — a practice
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. bark — to shout
  12. tear — to rip
  13. tube — in a tire
  14. bark — of a tree
  15. drill — the tool
  16. tube — the underground
  17. tear — from crying
  18. bat — for baseball
  19. bat — in an idiom
  20. tube — a container
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. drill — army training
  23. fork — a garden tool
  24. row — a quarrel

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