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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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468
Word bank
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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. The water is too ________________.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. When was this ________________ built?
  4. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. A trickle of blood ran from her ________________ down her cheek.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  11. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  12. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  13. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  14. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  15. Your daily life is your ________________ and your religion.
  16. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  17. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  18. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  19. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  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. cold — not warm
  2. clip — a video
  3. temple — a place of worship
  4. mine — for digging
  5. cold — an illness
  6. patient — a sick person
  7. clip — to cut
  8. temple — side of the head
  9. degree — temperature
  10. degree — an amount
  11. prune — to trim
  12. spring — of water
  13. degree — from a university
  14. spring — the season
  15. temple — a place of worship
  16. patient — a sick person
  17. mine — belonging to me
  18. mine — an explosive
  19. patient — calm and waiting
  20. spring — a coil
  21. prune — the fruit
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. prune — to trim
  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