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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. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  2. When are we going to ________________?
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  6. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  7. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  8. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  11. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  12. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  13. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  16. He is an ace ________________.
  17. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  18. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  19. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  20. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  21. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  22. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  23. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  24. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.

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

Answer key

  1. pitcher — a jug
  2. land — to come down
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. kid — to tease
  5. pound — for dogs
  6. snap — to speak sharply
  7. pitcher — a jug
  8. file — a tool
  9. cold — an illness
  10. land — ground
  11. pound — to hit hard
  12. snap — to snap out of it
  13. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  14. cold — not warm
  15. land — a country
  16. pitcher — in baseball
  17. rest — a break
  18. snap — to click
  19. file — a document
  20. kid — child
  21. file — a line of people
  22. rest — what's left
  23. rest — what's left
  24. pound — a weight

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