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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. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  4. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  5. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  6. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  7. The ball is in your ________________.
  8. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  9. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  14. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  17. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  18. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  19. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  20. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  21. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  22. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  23. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  24. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.

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

Answer key

  1. wound — an injury
  2. cold — not warm
  3. mine — belonging to me
  4. bark — of a tree
  5. mine — an explosive
  6. bark — to shout
  7. court — for sport
  8. wind — moving air
  9. wound — past of 'wind'
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. shower — rain
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. wind — to turn a key
  14. shower — a meteor shower
  15. cold — an illness
  16. wind — moving air
  17. wound — an injury
  18. content — the amount
  19. court — of law
  20. content — videos and posts
  21. mine — for digging
  22. content — happy
  23. shower — to wash
  24. court — of a king

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