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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: hand · cold · fork · ground · craft · hide · row · file

  1. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  4. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  5. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  9. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  10. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  11. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  12. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  13. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  14. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  15. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  16. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  17. There's no middle ________________.
  18. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  19. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  20. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  21. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  22. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  23. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  24. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.

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

Answer key

  1. hide — to keep secret
  2. cold — not warm
  3. row — a quarrel
  4. fork — in a road
  5. hand — in cards
  6. cold — an illness
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. file — a line of people
  9. craft — boats
  10. hand — help
  11. fork — to eat with
  12. craft — a handicraft
  13. hide — to keep secret
  14. hide — animal skin
  15. ground — crushed
  16. row — a line
  17. ground — a position
  18. hand — part of the body
  19. file — a document
  20. file — a tool
  21. row — to paddle
  22. craft — a skill
  23. fork — a garden tool
  24. ground — the earth

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