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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  3. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  4. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  5. Have you found your soul ________________?
  6. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  7. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  8. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  9. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  10. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  11. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  12. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  13. That was a fun ________________.
  14. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  15. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  16. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  17. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  18. We're on a ________________ here.
  19. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  20. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  21. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  22. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  23. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. field — for sport
  3. content — the amount
  4. chest — of your body
  5. mate — a partner
  6. chest — of your body
  7. mate — a friend
  8. mate — to breed
  9. roll — a cake
  10. game — a kind of play
  11. stem — to come from
  12. content — videos and posts
  13. game — a match
  14. stem — of a plant
  15. game — wild animals
  16. stem — a stem cell
  17. content — happy
  18. roll — on a roll
  19. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  20. chest — a box
  21. kid — child
  22. roll — a list
  23. field — a subject
  24. field — farmland

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