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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. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  2. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  3. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  4. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  5. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  6. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  7. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  8. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  13. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  14. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  15. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  16. Did you ________________ the meat?
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  20. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  21. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  22. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  23. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  24. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. band — a ring
  2. lash — a whip stroke
  3. season — in sport
  4. face — to confront
  5. season — of the year
  6. face — to point toward
  7. club — for dancing
  8. band — a music group
  9. degree — temperature
  10. club — a group
  11. clip — a video
  12. lash — to lash out
  13. lash — an eyelash
  14. degree — from a university
  15. clip — for paper
  16. season — to add flavour
  17. cold — not warm
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. degree — an amount
  20. band — a rubber band
  21. cold — an illness
  22. face — part of the head
  23. clip — to cut
  24. club — for golf

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