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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 goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  2. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  3. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  4. That was a fun ________________.
  5. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  6. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  7. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  8. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  9. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  10. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  11. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  12. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  13. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  14. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  15. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  16. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  19. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  22. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  23. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  24. I would like to have a ________________ here.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — dry grass
  2. face — to confront
  3. present — a gift
  4. game — a match
  5. game — a kind of play
  6. rest — what's left
  7. straw — to clutch at straws
  8. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  9. straw — a straw man
  10. kid — to tease
  11. rest — what's left
  12. present — there
  13. clip — for paper
  14. face — to point toward
  15. face — part of the head
  16. present — the time now
  17. clip — a video
  18. kid — child
  19. stem — to come from
  20. clip — to cut
  21. stem — of a plant
  22. game — wild animals
  23. stem — a stem cell
  24. rest — a break

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