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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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  3. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  4. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  5. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. That was a fun ________________.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  10. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  11. He is an ace ________________.
  12. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  15. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  16. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  17. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  18. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  19. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  20. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  21. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  22. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  23. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  24. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. pitcher — a jug
  3. content — the amount
  4. pit — a hole
  5. pit — in a race
  6. clip — to cut
  7. game — a match
  8. clip — for paper
  9. shower — a meteor shower
  10. bark — of a tree
  11. pitcher — in baseball
  12. content — videos and posts
  13. shower — rain
  14. game — wild animals
  15. game — a kind of play
  16. bark — to shout
  17. bark — a dog's sound
  18. straw — a straw man
  19. pitcher — a jug
  20. shower — to wash
  21. clip — a video
  22. straw — dry grass
  23. straw — to clutch at straws
  24. pit — a fruit stone

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