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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: court · kid · chest · land · bat · face · wind · kick

  1. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  3. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  4. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  5. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  6. The ball is in your ________________.
  7. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  8. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  9. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  10. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  11. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  12. When are we going to ________________?
  13. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  16. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  17. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  18. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  19. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  20. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  21. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  22. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  23. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  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. kid — to tease
  2. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  3. bat — in an idiom
  4. chest — of your body
  5. court — of a king
  6. court — for sport
  7. kick — in football
  8. wind — moving air
  9. chest — a box
  10. kick — with a leg
  11. land — a country
  12. land — to come down
  13. face — part of the head
  14. bat — the animal
  15. court — of law
  16. bat — for baseball
  17. face — to confront
  18. face — to point toward
  19. land — ground
  20. kid — child
  21. wind — to turn a key
  22. wind — moving air
  23. chest — of your body
  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