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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 116 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 got dealt a bad ________________.
  2. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  6. How do you ________________ your surname?
  7. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  8. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  9. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  10. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  11. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  12. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  13. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  17. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  18. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  19. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  20. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  21. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  22. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — in cards
  2. squash — to crush
  3. bat — the animal
  4. cold — not warm
  5. tear — from crying
  6. spell — letters
  7. file — a document
  8. squash — the sport
  9. scale — for weighing
  10. bat — for baseball
  11. scale — size or range
  12. spell — magic
  13. hand — help
  14. file — a tool
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. squash — the vegetable
  17. tear — to rip
  18. file — a line of people
  19. tear — from crying
  20. scale — in music
  21. hand — part of the body
  22. bat — in an idiom
  23. cold — an illness
  24. spell — a short time

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