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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  6. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  7. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  8. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  9. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  10. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  11. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  12. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  13. Don't do anything ________________.
  14. That was a fun ________________.
  15. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  16. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  17. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  18. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  19. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  20. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  21. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  22. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  23. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  24. I seem to be developing a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. tear — from crying
  3. pit — a hole
  4. game — wild animals
  5. mine — belonging to me
  6. kid — child
  7. rash — a series
  8. game — a kind of play
  9. pit — in a race
  10. content — happy
  11. mine — an explosive
  12. degree — an amount
  13. rash — hasty
  14. game — a match
  15. content — videos and posts
  16. degree — from a university
  17. content — the amount
  18. tear — to rip
  19. tear — from crying
  20. pit — a fruit stone
  21. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  22. degree — temperature
  23. mine — for digging
  24. rash — on the skin

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