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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. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  3. The ball is in your ________________.
  4. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  5. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  6. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  7. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  8. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  9. We're almost out of ________________.
  10. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  11. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  12. You don't need to ________________ round.
  13. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  14. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  15. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  19. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  20. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  21. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  22. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. court — of a king
  3. court — for sport
  4. file — a document
  5. tear — from crying
  6. bat — the animal
  7. bat — in an idiom
  8. tear — from crying
  9. pop — soda
  10. court — of law
  11. pitch — a sales talk
  12. pop — to visit
  13. wound — an injury
  14. pitch — completely
  15. tear — to rip
  16. file — a line of people
  17. shower — rain
  18. pop — music
  19. wound — past of 'wind'
  20. pitch — a sports field
  21. wound — an injury
  22. file — a tool
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. shower — a meteor shower

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