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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. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  4. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  5. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  6. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  7. That was a fun ________________.
  8. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  9. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  10. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  11. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  12. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  13. When are we going to ________________?
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  19. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  20. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  21. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  22. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  23. The ________________ took off on time.
  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. snap — to click
  2. shower — to wash
  3. snap — to snap out of it
  4. perch — for a bird
  5. plane — a tool
  6. land — ground
  7. game — a match
  8. perch — the fish
  9. spring — a coil
  10. game — a kind of play
  11. field — farmland
  12. perch — for a bird
  13. land — to come down
  14. field — for sport
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. spring — the season
  17. shower — rain
  18. spring — of water
  19. snap — to speak sharply
  20. plane — in geometry
  21. game — wild animals
  22. field — a subject
  23. plane — an aircraft
  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