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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. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  3. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  4. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  5. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  6. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  9. David sat on the ________________.
  10. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  11. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  14. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  15. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  16. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  17. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  18. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  21. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  22. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  23. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  24. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. tear — to rip
  3. content — the amount
  4. snap — to speak sharply
  5. wake — a trail
  6. bat — the animal
  7. cold — not warm
  8. tear — from crying
  9. swing — to play on
  10. tear — from crying
  11. swing — music
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. content — videos and posts
  14. bat — for baseball
  15. scale — for weighing
  16. snap — to snap out of it
  17. bat — in an idiom
  18. wake — to stop sleeping
  19. cold — an illness
  20. scale — size or range
  21. wake — before a funeral
  22. scale — in music
  23. swing — in golf
  24. snap — to click

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