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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 got dealt a bad ________________.
  2. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  3. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  4. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  5. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  6. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  7. How do you ________________ your surname?
  8. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  9. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  10. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  11. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  12. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  15. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  18. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  19. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  20. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  21. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  22. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  23. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  24. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — in cards
  2. content — the amount
  3. shower — to wash
  4. chair — a professorship
  5. fork — to eat with
  6. chair — to sit on
  7. spell — letters
  8. fork — in a road
  9. shower — a meteor shower
  10. tear — from crying
  11. spell — magic
  12. spell — a short time
  13. shower — rain
  14. hand — part of the body
  15. hand — help
  16. tear — from crying
  17. file — a tool
  18. tear — to rip
  19. chair — a leader
  20. content — videos and posts
  21. fork — a garden tool
  22. content — happy
  23. file — a line of people
  24. file — a document

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