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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. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  6. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  7. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  8. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  9. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  10. How do you ________________ your surname?
  11. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  12. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  13. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  14. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  15. It's one o'clock ________________.
  16. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  17. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  18. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  19. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  20. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  21. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  22. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  23. My father caught me by the ________________.
  24. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. content — happy
  3. wind — moving air
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. sharp — clever
  6. snap — to speak sharply
  7. hand — in cards
  8. field — a subject
  9. arm — part of the body
  10. spell — letters
  11. field — farmland
  12. spell — a short time
  13. arm — a part of something
  14. wind — moving air
  15. sharp — exactly
  16. snap — to snap out of it
  17. content — the amount
  18. spell — magic
  19. sharp — with an edge
  20. snap — to click
  21. field — for sport
  22. content — videos and posts
  23. arm — part of the body
  24. wind — to turn a key

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