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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. The water is too ________________.
  2. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  3. I thought I heard a ________________ in the kitchen.
  4. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  5. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  8. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  9. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  10. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  11. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  12. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  15. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  18. When are we going to ________________?
  19. Should I buy a wireless ________________?
  20. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  21. That must've been a ________________.
  22. "I don't like games like this," squeaked the ________________.
  23. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  24. Check the label for the sugar ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. land — ground
  3. mouse — the animal
  4. wind — moving air
  5. rush — hurry
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. kid — child
  8. land — a country
  9. rush — to hurry
  10. bat — the animal
  11. content — videos and posts
  12. wind — moving air
  13. cold — an illness
  14. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  15. kid — to tease
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. bat — in an idiom
  18. land — to come down
  19. mouse — for a computer
  20. bat — for baseball
  21. rush — a thrill
  22. mouse — the animal
  23. content — happy
  24. content — the amount

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