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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 in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  2. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  3. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  4. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  5. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  8. Don't ________________ against the wall. It's just been painted.
  9. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  10. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  11. Vegetables slowly ________________ towards the light.
  12. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  13. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  14. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  15. He is as ________________ as a wolf.
  16. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  17. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  18. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  19. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  20. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  21. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  22. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  23. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. mine — belonging to me
  2. chair — a leader
  3. deal — an agreement
  4. kid — child
  5. mine — for digging
  6. clip — to cut
  7. hand — part of the body
  8. lean — to rest against
  9. hand — in cards
  10. kid — to tease
  11. lean — to bend
  12. mine — an explosive
  13. deal — a big deal
  14. degree — temperature
  15. lean — thin
  16. hand — help
  17. deal — to handle
  18. chair — to sit on
  19. clip — a video
  20. chair — a professorship
  21. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  22. degree — from a university
  23. degree — an amount
  24. clip — for paper

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