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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. That was a fun ________________.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  4. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  5. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  6. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  7. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  8. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  9. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  12. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  13. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  14. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  15. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  16. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  17. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  18. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  19. When are we going to ________________?
  20. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  21. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  22. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  23. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  24. I got dealt a bad ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. game — a match
  2. clip — to cut
  3. land — ground
  4. land — a country
  5. chest — of your body
  6. content — happy
  7. trunk — of a tree
  8. trunk — of a car
  9. content — the amount
  10. clip — for paper
  11. hand — help
  12. clip — a video
  13. chest — of your body
  14. trunk — of an elephant
  15. content — videos and posts
  16. prune — to trim
  17. game — a kind of play
  18. game — wild animals
  19. land — to come down
  20. prune — the fruit
  21. hand — part of the body
  22. prune — to trim
  23. chest — a box
  24. hand — in cards

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