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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. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  2. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  3. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  4. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  5. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  6. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  7. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  8. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  9. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  12. Don't do anything ________________.
  13. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  14. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  15. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  16. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  17. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  18. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  19. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  20. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  21. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  22. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  23. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  24. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.

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

Answer key

  1. squash — the sport
  2. wound — an injury
  3. hand — part of the body
  4. hand — in cards
  5. file — a tool
  6. stem — of a plant
  7. bat — for baseball
  8. file — a line of people
  9. bat — the animal
  10. file — a document
  11. stem — a stem cell
  12. rash — hasty
  13. wound — an injury
  14. chest — of your body
  15. rash — a series
  16. rash — on the skin
  17. squash — to crush
  18. squash — the vegetable
  19. stem — to come from
  20. chest — of your body
  21. chest — a box
  22. wound — past of 'wind'
  23. hand — help
  24. bat — in an idiom

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