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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 116 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: kid · hand · row · cold · face · stock · content · bat

  1. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  5. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  6. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  7. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  8. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  9. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  10. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  11. The ________________ market has crashed.
  12. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  13. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  14. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  15. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  18. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  19. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  20. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  21. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  22. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  23. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. stock — a soup base
  2. content — happy
  3. cold — not warm
  4. face — to point toward
  5. content — the amount
  6. bat — the animal
  7. hand — help
  8. face — to confront
  9. face — part of the head
  10. bat — for baseball
  11. stock — shares
  12. content — videos and posts
  13. bat — in an idiom
  14. row — a line
  15. row — to paddle
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. stock — goods
  18. kid — child
  19. hand — part of the body
  20. row — a quarrel
  21. kid — to tease
  22. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  23. hand — in cards
  24. cold — an illness

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