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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 120 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. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  3. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  4. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  5. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  6. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  7. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  8. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  9. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  10. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  11. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  12. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  13. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  14. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  15. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  18. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  19. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  24. We took cover from the thunder ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — to cut
  2. wound — an injury
  3. bat — in an idiom
  4. tear — to rip
  5. kick — a thrill
  6. field — for sport
  7. shower — to wash
  8. bat — for baseball
  9. kick — with a leg
  10. cap — a hat
  11. shower — a meteor shower
  12. kick — in football
  13. wound — past of 'wind'
  14. tear — from crying
  15. wound — an injury
  16. tear — from crying
  17. bat — the animal
  18. cap — of ice
  19. clip — for paper
  20. field — farmland
  21. field — a subject
  22. clip — a video
  23. cap — a lid
  24. shower — rain

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