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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: wound · field · drill · row · land · bat · shower · tear

  1. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  3. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  4. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  5. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  6. When are we going to ________________?
  7. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  8. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  9. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  10. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  11. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  12. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  13. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  14. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  15. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  16. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  17. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  18. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  19. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  20. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  21. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  22. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  23. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  24. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. drill — the tool
  3. land — a country
  4. wound — past of 'wind'
  5. land — ground
  6. land — to come down
  7. wound — an injury
  8. shower — rain
  9. row — a line
  10. tear — from crying
  11. row — a quarrel
  12. wound — an injury
  13. drill — army training
  14. row — to paddle
  15. tear — from crying
  16. bat — the animal
  17. field — for sport
  18. drill — a practice
  19. bat — for baseball
  20. shower — a meteor shower
  21. tear — to rip
  22. bat — in an idiom
  23. field — farmland
  24. field — a subject

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