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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'll be taking the ________________.
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  6. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  7. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  8. This piece is in a major ________________.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  11. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  12. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  13. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  14. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. Are you the only one who has a ________________ to this door?
  17. Hard work is the ________________ to success.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. The ________________ market has crashed.
  20. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  21. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  22. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  23. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. tube — the underground
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. band — a ring
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. band — a music group
  6. stock — goods
  7. tube — in a tire
  8. key — in music
  9. cold — an illness
  10. prune — the fruit
  11. bat — in an idiom
  12. prune — to trim
  13. prune — to trim
  14. clip — to cut
  15. cold — not warm
  16. key — for a lock
  17. key — the most important part
  18. bat — the animal
  19. stock — shares
  20. stock — a soup base
  21. tube — a container
  22. clip — for paper
  23. clip — a video
  24. bat — for baseball

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