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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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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 put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  2. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  3. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  4. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  5. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  6. There's no middle ________________.
  7. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  8. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  9. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  10. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  14. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  15. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  19. The King held a masked ________________.
  20. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  21. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  22. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  23. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  24. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — to sit on
  2. ground — the earth
  3. ball — a great time
  4. row — a quarrel
  5. hand — help
  6. ground — a position
  7. kid — child
  8. hand — part of the body
  9. hand — in cards
  10. scale — for weighing
  11. cold — an illness
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. ground — crushed
  14. kid — to tease
  15. row — to paddle
  16. cold — not warm
  17. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  18. chair — a professorship
  19. ball — a dance
  20. scale — in music
  21. chair — a leader
  22. row — a line
  23. ball — a round shape
  24. scale — size or range

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