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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. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  3. There's no middle ________________.
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  6. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  7. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  8. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  9. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  10. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  11. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  14. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  15. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  18. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  19. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  20. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  21. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  24. Biology is a ________________ of science.

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. ground — a position
  4. hand — help
  5. bark — to shout
  6. content — the amount
  7. hand — part of the body
  8. file — a tool
  9. ground — crushed
  10. ground — the earth
  11. branch — of a bank
  12. field — a subject
  13. bark — of a tree
  14. net — for catching
  15. field — for sport
  16. file — a line of people
  17. branch — of a tree
  18. net — in sport
  19. hand — in cards
  20. bark — a dog's sound
  21. net — after costs
  22. file — a document
  23. field — farmland
  24. branch — a division

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