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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. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  3. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  4. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  5. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  6. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  7. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  8. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  9. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  10. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  11. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  12. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  13. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  14. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  15. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  16. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  17. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  18. The ________________ market has crashed.
  19. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  20. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  21. When are we going to ________________?
  22. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  23. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  24. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. bat — the animal
  3. bark — to shout
  4. wound — an injury
  5. bark — a dog's sound
  6. hand — in cards
  7. bat — in an idiom
  8. bark — of a tree
  9. bat — for baseball
  10. wound — past of 'wind'
  11. mine — for digging
  12. wound — an injury
  13. perch — for a bird
  14. mine — belonging to me
  15. hand — help
  16. perch — the fish
  17. stock — a soup base
  18. stock — shares
  19. land — a country
  20. stock — goods
  21. land — to come down
  22. mine — an explosive
  23. perch — for a bird
  24. hand — part of the body

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