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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. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  3. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  4. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  5. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  6. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  7. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  8. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  9. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  10. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  11. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  12. There's no middle ________________.
  13. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  16. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  19. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  20. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  21. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  22. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  23. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  24. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — to cut
  2. fork — to eat with
  3. chest — of your body
  4. fork — a garden tool
  5. hand — help
  6. ground — the earth
  7. race — the arms race
  8. ground — crushed
  9. trunk — of an elephant
  10. trunk — of a tree
  11. degree — from a university
  12. ground — a position
  13. hand — part of the body
  14. clip — for paper
  15. degree — an amount
  16. hand — in cards
  17. clip — a video
  18. fork — in a road
  19. trunk — of a car
  20. race — humankind
  21. degree — temperature
  22. chest — a box
  23. chest — of your body
  24. race — a contest

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