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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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  3. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  4. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  5. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  10. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  11. My father caught me by the ________________.
  12. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  13. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  14. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  15. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  18. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  19. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  20. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  21. The ________________ took off on time.
  22. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  23. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  24. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. mine — for digging
  3. arm — a part of something
  4. chest — of your body
  5. pitch — a sports field
  6. clip — to cut
  7. mine — an explosive
  8. clip — for paper
  9. pitch — completely
  10. shower — to wash
  11. arm — part of the body
  12. content — the amount
  13. plane — in geometry
  14. pitch — a sales talk
  15. chest — of your body
  16. clip — a video
  17. mine — belonging to me
  18. content — videos and posts
  19. arm — part of the body
  20. shower — rain
  21. plane — an aircraft
  22. plane — a tool
  23. shower — a meteor shower
  24. chest — a box

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