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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 get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  2. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  3. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  6. Don't do anything ________________.
  7. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  8. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  9. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  10. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  13. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  14. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  15. That was a fun ________________.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  18. Have you settled on a ________________?
  19. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  20. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  21. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  22. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. kick — a thrill
  2. kick — with a leg
  3. straw — dry grass
  4. game — wild animals
  5. rule — a law
  6. rash — hasty
  7. date — the fruit
  8. kick — in football
  9. straw — a straw man
  10. rule — government
  11. cold — an illness
  12. rash — a series
  13. field — a subject
  14. rash — on the skin
  15. game — a match
  16. field — for sport
  17. game — a kind of play
  18. date — on the calendar
  19. date — on the calendar
  20. straw — to clutch at straws
  21. field — farmland
  22. rule — to rule out
  23. cold — not warm
  24. cold — the Cold War

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