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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 120 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 had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  3. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  4. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  5. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  6. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  7. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  8. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  9. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  10. How do you ________________ your surname?
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. Fiction is obliged to ________________ to possibilities. Truth isn't.
  13. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  14. This is the first time I've ever walked with a ________________.
  15. Speak softly and carry a big ________________.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  18. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  19. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  20. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  21. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  22. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. The elephant has a huge ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. spell — magic
  3. bat — in an idiom
  4. file — a document
  5. wound — an injury
  6. hand — help
  7. trunk — of a car
  8. wound — past of 'wind'
  9. hand — part of the body
  10. spell — letters
  11. bat — the animal
  12. stick — to attach or keep to
  13. hand — in cards
  14. stick — a piece of wood
  15. stick — a piece of wood
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. wound — an injury
  18. bat — for baseball
  19. spell — a short time
  20. trunk — of a tree
  21. file — a line of people
  22. file — a tool
  23. cold — not warm
  24. trunk — of an elephant

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