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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: swing · cold · cell · toast · kid · row · date · hand

  1. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  4. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. I would like to propose a ________________ on your birthday.
  7. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  8. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  9. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  10. After the show, she was the ________________ of the town.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  13. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  14. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  15. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  16. I like lots of butter on my ________________ in the morning.
  17. He was locked up in a ________________.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. David sat on the ________________.
  20. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  21. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  22. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  23. Have you settled on a ________________?
  24. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. cold — an illness
  3. kid — child
  4. cell — a phone
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. toast — a drink to someone
  7. hand — in cards
  8. date — on the calendar
  9. cell — in biology
  10. toast — the most admired
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. swing — music
  13. row — a quarrel
  14. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  15. row — a line
  16. toast — bread
  17. cell — in a prison
  18. cold — not warm
  19. swing — to play on
  20. date — the fruit
  21. swing — in golf
  22. hand — help
  23. date — on the calendar
  24. row — to paddle

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