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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: chest · bark · spring · pitcher · content · rest · straw · band

  1. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  2. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  3. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  4. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  5. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  6. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  7. He is an ace ________________.
  8. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  9. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  10. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  11. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  12. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  13. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  14. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  15. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  16. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  17. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  18. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  19. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  22. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  23. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  24. Check the label for the sugar ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. pitcher — a jug
  2. band — a ring
  3. bark — to shout
  4. spring — of water
  5. rest — what's left
  6. chest — of your body
  7. pitcher — in baseball
  8. bark — a dog's sound
  9. content — happy
  10. spring — the season
  11. chest — of your body
  12. straw — to clutch at straws
  13. bark — of a tree
  14. band — a rubber band
  15. straw — dry grass
  16. band — a music group
  17. straw — a straw man
  18. pitcher — a jug
  19. chest — a box
  20. spring — a coil
  21. rest — what's left
  22. rest — a break
  23. content — videos and posts
  24. content — the amount

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