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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. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  2. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  5. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  6. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  7. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  8. Don't do anything ________________.
  9. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  10. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  11. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  12. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  13. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  14. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  15. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  16. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  17. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  18. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  19. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  20. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  21. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. He's taking a ________________ right now.

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

Answer key

  1. perch — for a bird
  2. bat — in an idiom
  3. cold — not warm
  4. rash — on the skin
  5. shower — a meteor shower
  6. perch — the fish
  7. shower — rain
  8. rash — hasty
  9. staff — employees
  10. bat — for baseball
  11. staff — a stick
  12. bat — the animal
  13. chest — a box
  14. chest — of your body
  15. straw — dry grass
  16. straw — to clutch at straws
  17. rash — a series
  18. perch — for a bird
  19. chest — of your body
  20. staff — employees
  21. straw — a straw man
  22. cold — an illness
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. shower — to wash

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