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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. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  3. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  4. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  5. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  6. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  7. He is an ace ________________.
  8. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  9. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  10. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  11. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  12. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  13. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  14. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  15. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  16. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  17. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  21. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  22. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  23. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. pitcher — a jug
  3. bark — a dog's sound
  4. shower — rain
  5. row — a quarrel
  6. tear — to rip
  7. pitcher — in baseball
  8. trunk — of an elephant
  9. pound — for dogs
  10. bat — in an idiom
  11. bark — of a tree
  12. pound — a weight
  13. pitcher — a jug
  14. pound — to hit hard
  15. row — a line
  16. trunk — of a car
  17. row — to paddle
  18. bat — the animal
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. tear — from crying
  21. bark — to shout
  22. tear — from crying
  23. trunk — of a tree
  24. bat — for baseball

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