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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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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: bore · cold · ball · mine · kid · chest · pitch · bat

  1. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  2. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  3. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  4. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  7. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  8. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  9. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. The King held a masked ________________.
  12. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  13. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  16. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  17. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  18. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  19. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  20. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  21. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  22. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  23. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. pitch — completely
  2. ball — a round shape
  3. bore — to tire
  4. mine — an explosive
  5. cold — not warm
  6. mine — belonging to me
  7. pitch — a sports field
  8. kid — to tease
  9. chest — a box
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. ball — a dance
  12. bat — the animal
  13. chest — of your body
  14. cold — an illness
  15. ball — a great time
  16. kid — child
  17. bore — to drill
  18. bore — gave birth
  19. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  20. mine — for digging
  21. pitch — a sales talk
  22. chest — of your body
  23. bat — in an idiom
  24. bat — for baseball

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