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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. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. I'll be taking the ________________.
  4. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  5. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  6. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  7. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  8. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  9. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  10. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  11. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  12. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  13. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  14. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  17. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  18. That was a fun ________________.
  19. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  20. There's no middle ________________.
  21. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  24. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. tear — from crying
  3. tube — the underground
  4. fan — a supporter
  5. game — a kind of play
  6. hand — in cards
  7. chest — of your body
  8. game — wild animals
  9. fan — a supporter
  10. fan — to cool the air
  11. tube — in a tire
  12. chest — of your body
  13. ground — crushed
  14. chest — a box
  15. tear — to rip
  16. file — a document
  17. hand — part of the body
  18. game — a match
  19. tear — from crying
  20. ground — a position
  21. file — a tool
  22. file — a line of people
  23. tube — a container
  24. ground — the earth

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