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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 116 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: court · clip · stock · last · spring · cold · craft · row

  1. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  2. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  3. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  4. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  5. The ball is in your ________________.
  6. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. False peace will not ________________.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. The ________________ market has crashed.
  12. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  13. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  14. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  15. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  16. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  17. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  18. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  23. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  24. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.

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

Answer key

  1. row — a quarrel
  2. craft — a handicraft
  3. cold — an illness
  4. row — a line
  5. court — for sport
  6. court — of a king
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. clip — a video
  9. last — to go on
  10. clip — for paper
  11. stock — shares
  12. spring — of water
  13. spring — the season
  14. craft — a skill
  15. court — of law
  16. craft — boats
  17. row — to paddle
  18. last — finally
  19. cold — not warm
  20. stock — a soup base
  21. spring — a coil
  22. last — final
  23. clip — to cut
  24. stock — goods

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