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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 120 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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  3. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  4. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  5. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  9. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  10. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  11. Did you ________________ the meat?
  12. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  13. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  14. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  15. A smaller training pitch was installed beside the main ________________.
  16. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  17. The train was so full that I had to ________________ all the while.
  18. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  19. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  20. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  21. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  22. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  23. I can't ________________ this cold.
  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. content — happy
  2. season — in sport
  3. chest — of your body
  4. bass — low music
  5. content — the amount
  6. cold — an illness
  7. cold — not warm
  8. kid — child
  9. chest — of your body
  10. bass — the instrument
  11. season — to add flavour
  12. snap — to speak sharply
  13. chest — a box
  14. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  15. stand — for spectators
  16. content — videos and posts
  17. stand — on your feet
  18. bass — the fish
  19. snap — to click
  20. kid — to tease
  21. season — of the year
  22. snap — to snap out of it
  23. stand — to bear
  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