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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. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  2. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  8. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  9. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  10. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  13. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.
  14. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  17. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  18. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  22. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. The ball is in your ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — a straw man
  2. court — of a king
  3. bat — the animal
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. straw — dry grass
  6. clip — to cut
  7. chest — of your body
  8. chest — of your body
  9. track — to keep track
  10. pit — a fruit stone
  11. clip — a video
  12. track — a path
  13. track — a song
  14. court — of law
  15. cold — not warm
  16. chest — a box
  17. straw — to clutch at straws
  18. clip — for paper
  19. cold — an illness
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. pit — a hole
  22. pit — in a race
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. court — for sport

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