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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. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. We're almost out of ________________.
  3. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  4. How do you ________________ your surname?
  5. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  6. You don't need to ________________ round.
  7. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  8. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  9. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  10. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  11. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  12. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  13. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  16. When are we going to ________________?
  17. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  18. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  19. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  20. He was locked up in a ________________.
  21. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  22. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  23. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  24. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. pop — soda
  3. straw — a straw man
  4. spell — letters
  5. file — a tool
  6. pop — to visit
  7. spell — magic
  8. straw — dry grass
  9. cell — in biology
  10. cell — a phone
  11. wax — to grow
  12. trunk — of a car
  13. pop — music
  14. land — a country
  15. file — a line of people
  16. land — to come down
  17. wax — in the ear
  18. file — a document
  19. trunk — of a tree
  20. cell — in a prison
  21. wax — for sculpting
  22. trunk — of an elephant
  23. spell — a short time
  24. straw — to clutch at straws

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