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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. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  3. He is an ace ________________.
  4. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  5. When are we going to ________________?
  6. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  7. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  8. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  9. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  10. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  11. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  12. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. Have you found your soul ________________?
  18. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  19. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  20. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  21. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  22. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  23. The ball is in your ________________.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. hand — in cards
  3. pitcher — in baseball
  4. land — a country
  5. land — to come down
  6. bat — for baseball
  7. mate — to breed
  8. court — of law
  9. mate — a friend
  10. hand — help
  11. row — a line
  12. row — a quarrel
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. row — to paddle
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. cold — not warm
  17. mate — a partner
  18. court — of a king
  19. pitcher — a jug
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. bat — the animal
  22. hand — part of the body
  23. court — for sport
  24. cold — an illness

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