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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. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  3. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  4. He was locked up in a ________________.
  5. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  6. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  7. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  8. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  9. When are we going to ________________?
  10. That was a fun ________________.
  11. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  12. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  13. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  16. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  17. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  18. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  19. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  24. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. hand — part of the body
  3. snap — to speak sharply
  4. cell — in a prison
  5. club — for dancing
  6. club — a group
  7. cell — a phone
  8. snap — to snap out of it
  9. land — to come down
  10. game — a match
  11. cell — in biology
  12. hand — help
  13. club — for golf
  14. clip — for paper
  15. land — a country
  16. mine — belonging to me
  17. hand — in cards
  18. mine — for digging
  19. mine — an explosive
  20. clip — to cut
  21. land — ground
  22. clip — a video
  23. game — wild animals
  24. game — a kind of play

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