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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. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  3. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  4. I'll take my ________________ from you.
  5. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  6. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  7. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  8. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  9. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  10. When I cough twice, that's your ________________ to come into the room.
  11. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. You can't play pool without a ________________ stick.
  18. When are we going to ________________?
  19. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  20. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  21. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  22. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  23. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  24. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. clip — for paper
  3. land — a country
  4. cue — a hint
  5. field — farmland
  6. chest — of your body
  7. chest — of your body
  8. chest — a box
  9. field — a subject
  10. cue — a signal
  11. band — a ring
  12. hand — in cards
  13. clip — to cut
  14. field — for sport
  15. scale — for weighing
  16. clip — a video
  17. cue — for pool
  18. land — to come down
  19. band — a music group
  20. scale — in music
  21. band — a rubber band
  22. scale — size or range
  23. hand — part of the body
  24. land — ground

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