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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. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  2. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  3. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  4. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  5. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  6. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  7. The ________________ market has crashed.
  8. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  9. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  10. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  11. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  12. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  15. That was a fun ________________.
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  18. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  19. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  20. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  21. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  22. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  23. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  24. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. row — a line
  2. stock — goods
  3. scale — in music
  4. file — a line of people
  5. file — a tool
  6. file — a document
  7. stock — shares
  8. row — to paddle
  9. stock — a soup base
  10. mine — an explosive
  11. mine — for digging
  12. scale — for weighing
  13. clip — a video
  14. kid — to tease
  15. game — a match
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. game — a kind of play
  18. row — a quarrel
  19. clip — to cut
  20. clip — for paper
  21. game — wild animals
  22. mine — belonging to me
  23. scale — size or range
  24. kid — child

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