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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: court · roll · tear · land · wound · content · sharp · spell

  1. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. When are we going to ________________?
  3. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  4. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  5. We're on a ________________ here.
  6. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  7. How do you ________________ your surname?
  8. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  9. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  10. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  11. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  12. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  13. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  14. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  15. It's one o'clock ________________.
  16. The ball is in your ________________.
  17. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  18. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  19. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  20. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  21. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  22. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  23. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  24. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. land — to come down
  3. land — ground
  4. roll — a cake
  5. roll — on a roll
  6. tear — from crying
  7. spell — letters
  8. content — the amount
  9. wound — an injury
  10. spell — magic
  11. land — a country
  12. sharp — clever
  13. court — of law
  14. wound — past of 'wind'
  15. sharp — exactly
  16. court — for sport
  17. tear — to rip
  18. tear — from crying
  19. spell — a short time
  20. wound — an injury
  21. court — of a king
  22. content — videos and posts
  23. sharp — with an edge
  24. roll — a list

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