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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. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  2. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  3. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  4. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  5. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  6. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  7. The ball is in your ________________.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  10. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  11. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  12. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  15. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  16. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  17. That was a fun ________________.
  18. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  19. The ________________ took off on time.
  20. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  21. False peace will not ________________.
  22. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. snap — to snap out of it
  3. fan — a supporter
  4. fan — a supporter
  5. court — of law
  6. prune — to trim
  7. court — for sport
  8. cold — an illness
  9. fan — to cool the air
  10. snap — to speak sharply
  11. last — final
  12. prune — to trim
  13. cold — not warm
  14. last — finally
  15. prune — the fruit
  16. game — wild animals
  17. game — a match
  18. court — of a king
  19. plane — an aircraft
  20. game — a kind of play
  21. last — to go on
  22. plane — a tool
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. plane — in geometry

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