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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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Word bank
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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word from the word bank in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

Word bank: chest · straw · coach · pop · net · bat · land · hand

  1. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  3. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  4. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  5. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  6. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  7. When are we going to ________________?
  8. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  9. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  10. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  11. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  12. We're almost out of ________________.
  13. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  14. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  15. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  16. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  17. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. You don't need to ________________ round.
  20. Have you met the new head ________________?
  21. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  22. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. hand — part of the body
  3. hand — help
  4. net — after costs
  5. chest — of your body
  6. straw — to clutch at straws
  7. land — to come down
  8. land — a country
  9. straw — a straw man
  10. net — in sport
  11. chest — a box
  12. pop — soda
  13. net — for catching
  14. pop — music
  15. coach — a trainer
  16. straw — dry grass
  17. bat — in an idiom
  18. bat — the animal
  19. pop — to visit
  20. coach — a trainer
  21. hand — in cards
  22. chest — of your body
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. coach — pulled by horses

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