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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. That was a fun ________________.
  2. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  3. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. David sat on the ________________.
  6. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  7. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  8. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  9. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  10. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  11. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  16. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  17. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  18. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  19. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  20. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  21. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  22. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  23. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  24. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. game — a match
  2. bark — of a tree
  3. chair — to sit on
  4. cold — an illness
  5. swing — to play on
  6. bark — to shout
  7. game — wild animals
  8. stem — to come from
  9. content — videos and posts
  10. stem — of a plant
  11. swing — music
  12. hand — in cards
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. cold — not warm
  15. content — happy
  16. hand — help
  17. content — the amount
  18. chair — a leader
  19. stem — a stem cell
  20. game — a kind of play
  21. bark — a dog's sound
  22. swing — in golf
  23. hand — part of the body
  24. chair — a professorship

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