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

Word bank: kick · hand · pitch · row · file · race · tear · sharp

  1. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  3. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  4. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  5. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  6. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  7. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  8. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. It's one o'clock ________________.
  11. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  12. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  16. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  17. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  18. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  19. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  20. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  21. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  22. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  23. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  24. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. sharp — clever
  3. tear — to rip
  4. row — to paddle
  5. sharp — with an edge
  6. pitch — completely
  7. race — a contest
  8. tear — from crying
  9. tear — from crying
  10. sharp — exactly
  11. row — a line
  12. hand — in cards
  13. file — a document
  14. file — a tool
  15. kick — with a leg
  16. race — the arms race
  17. pitch — a sales talk
  18. file — a line of people
  19. hand — part of the body
  20. kick — in football
  21. pitch — a sports field
  22. race — humankind
  23. row — a quarrel
  24. kick — a thrill

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