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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: cold · hand · land · bat · clip · fork · ball · shower

  1. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  2. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  3. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  4. The King held a masked ________________.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. When are we going to ________________?
  7. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  8. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  9. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  10. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  13. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  14. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  18. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  19. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  22. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. fork — in a road
  2. bat — in an idiom
  3. land — ground
  4. ball — a dance
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. land — to come down
  7. bat — the animal
  8. land — a country
  9. shower — to wash
  10. hand — help
  11. clip — a video
  12. clip — to cut
  13. ball — a round shape
  14. hand — in cards
  15. cold — not warm
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. shower — rain
  18. fork — to eat with
  19. hand — part of the body
  20. cold — an illness
  21. fork — a garden tool
  22. ball — a great time
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. clip — for paper

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