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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. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  2. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  3. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  4. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  5. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  6. That was a fun ________________.
  7. The ball is in your ________________.
  8. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  9. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  12. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  13. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  16. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  17. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  18. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  21. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  22. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.

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

Answer key

  1. wound — an injury
  2. fan — a supporter
  3. snap — to click
  4. straw — dry grass
  5. content — the amount
  6. game — a match
  7. court — for sport
  8. fan — a supporter
  9. snap — to snap out of it
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. fan — to cool the air
  12. straw — a straw man
  13. content — videos and posts
  14. cold — an illness
  15. game — a kind of play
  16. content — happy
  17. straw — to clutch at straws
  18. court — of law
  19. wound — an injury
  20. wound — past of 'wind'
  21. snap — to speak sharply
  22. game — wild animals
  23. cold — not warm
  24. court — of a king

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