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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. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  4. The hot cup left a ________________ on the table.
  5. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  6. When are we going to ________________?
  7. The ball is in your ________________.
  8. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  9. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  10. ________________ my words: he'll be late again.
  11. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  12. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  15. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  16. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  17. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  18. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  19. Have you settled on a ________________?
  20. David sat on the ________________.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  23. She got the top ________________ in the exam.
  24. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. cold — an illness
  3. court — of law
  4. mark — a trace
  5. content — the amount
  6. land — to come down
  7. court — for sport
  8. swing — in golf
  9. shower — to wash
  10. mark — to pay attention
  11. shower — rain
  12. date — the fruit
  13. cold — not warm
  14. shower — a meteor shower
  15. date — on the calendar
  16. content — happy
  17. swing — music
  18. court — of a king
  19. date — on the calendar
  20. swing — to play on
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. content — videos and posts
  23. mark — a grade
  24. land — a country

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