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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 in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  3. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  4. The people resisted their cruel ________________.
  5. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  8. That was a fun ________________.
  9. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  10. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  11. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  12. A ________________ helps one to draw a straight line.
  13. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  14. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  18. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  19. Borders were drawn on the map using a ________________, with no regard for cultural realities on the ground.
  20. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  23. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  24. Check the label for the sugar ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. fork — a garden tool
  3. content — videos and posts
  4. ruler — a monarch
  5. fork — to eat with
  6. cold — an illness
  7. branch — of a bank
  8. game — a match
  9. row — a quarrel
  10. row — to paddle
  11. shower — rain
  12. ruler — for measuring
  13. shower — to wash
  14. branch — of a tree
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. branch — a division
  18. row — a line
  19. ruler — for measuring
  20. game — wild animals
  21. cold — not warm
  22. fork — in a road
  23. shower — a meteor shower
  24. content — the amount

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