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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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  3. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  4. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  5. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  6. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  9. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  12. When are we going to ________________?
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. He works in a ________________ mill.
  15. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  16. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  19. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  20. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  21. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  22. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  23. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  24. She's very handy with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. content — videos and posts
  3. clip — a video
  4. fall — to drop
  5. land — ground
  6. prune — to trim
  7. clip — for paper
  8. bark — to shout
  9. content — the amount
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. prune — to trim
  12. land — to come down
  13. clip — to cut
  14. saw — the tool
  15. kid — to tease
  16. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  17. fall — the season
  18. saw — past of 'see'
  19. bark — of a tree
  20. prune — the fruit
  21. kid — child
  22. land — a country
  23. fall — to drop
  24. saw — the tool

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