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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. ________________ my words: he'll be late again.
  3. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. I can't ________________ this cold.
  6. He is an ace ________________.
  7. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. The train was so full that I had to ________________ all the while.
  12. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  13. That was a fun ________________.
  14. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. The hot cup left a ________________ on the table.
  17. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  20. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  21. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  22. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  23. She got the top ________________ in the exam.
  24. A smaller training pitch was installed beside the main ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. mark — to pay attention
  3. rule — a law
  4. cold — an illness
  5. stand — to bear
  6. pitcher — in baseball
  7. rule — government
  8. clip — a video
  9. pitcher — a jug
  10. clip — for paper
  11. stand — on your feet
  12. clip — to cut
  13. game — a match
  14. content — videos and posts
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. mark — a trace
  17. rule — to rule out
  18. cold — not warm
  19. game — a kind of play
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. game — wild animals
  22. content — the amount
  23. mark — a grade
  24. stand — for spectators

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