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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  3. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  4. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  5. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  6. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  7. That was a fun ________________.
  8. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  9. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  10. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  11. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  12. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  13. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  18. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  21. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  22. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. game — wild animals
  3. capital — a city
  4. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  5. wound — an injury
  6. bat — in an idiom
  7. game — a match
  8. game — a kind of play
  9. content — the amount
  10. content — videos and posts
  11. capital — a big letter
  12. file — a document
  13. capital — money
  14. bat — the animal
  15. row — a quarrel
  16. file — a line of people
  17. wound — past of 'wind'
  18. file — a tool
  19. wound — an injury
  20. row — to paddle
  21. row — a line
  22. kid — child
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. content — happy

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