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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. The ball is in your ________________.
  2. I assure you, everything's ________________.
  3. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  8. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  9. This shop sells ________________ wines and cheeses.
  10. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  11. I got a ________________ for parking in the wrong place.
  12. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  13. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  14. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  15. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  16. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  17. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  18. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  19. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  20. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  21. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  22. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  23. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. court — for sport
  2. fine — all right
  3. tear — from crying
  4. cold — an illness
  5. cold — not warm
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. court — of law
  8. tear — to rip
  9. fine — high quality
  10. drill — the tool
  11. fine — a penalty
  12. bat — the animal
  13. court — of a king
  14. fork — a garden tool
  15. drill — army training
  16. content — videos and posts
  17. content — happy
  18. fork — to eat with
  19. fork — in a road
  20. drill — a practice
  21. tear — from crying
  22. bat — in an idiom
  23. content — the amount
  24. cold — the Cold War

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