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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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468
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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. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  4. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  7. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  8. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  9. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  10. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  11. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  12. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  13. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  14. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  15. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  20. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  21. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  24. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kick — in football
  2. tear — from crying
  3. kick — with a leg
  4. clip — to cut
  5. clip — for paper
  6. prune — the fruit
  7. tear — to rip
  8. bowl — a dish
  9. prune — to trim
  10. bowl — to roll
  11. bowl — a football final
  12. content — happy
  13. bat — in an idiom
  14. prune — to trim
  15. tear — from crying
  16. clip — a video
  17. bat — for baseball
  18. bat — the animal
  19. file — a tool
  20. file — a document
  21. kick — a thrill
  22. file — a line of people
  23. content — the amount
  24. content — videos and posts

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