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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. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  2. Have you settled on a ________________?
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  5. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  6. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  7. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  8. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. It's one o'clock ________________.
  11. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  12. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  13. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  14. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  15. You don't need to ________________ round.
  16. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  17. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  18. We're almost out of ________________.
  19. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  20. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  21. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The ball is in your ________________.
  24. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.

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

Answer key

  1. mine — for digging
  2. date — on the calendar
  3. cold — not warm
  4. court — of law
  5. mine — an explosive
  6. chest — a box
  7. date — the fruit
  8. mine — belonging to me
  9. cold — an illness
  10. sharp — exactly
  11. pop — music
  12. clip — a video
  13. chest — of your body
  14. clip — to cut
  15. pop — to visit
  16. date — on the calendar
  17. court — of a king
  18. pop — soda
  19. sharp — with an edge
  20. sharp — clever
  21. clip — for paper
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. court — for sport
  24. chest — of your body

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