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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. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  2. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  3. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  4. Have you met the new head ________________?
  5. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  6. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  9. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  10. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  11. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  12. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  13. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  14. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  15. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  16. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  22. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  23. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  24. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. chair — a professorship
  2. face — to confront
  3. face — to point toward
  4. coach — a trainer
  5. row — a line
  6. row — to paddle
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. wind — moving air
  9. row — a quarrel
  10. coach — a trainer
  11. patient — a sick person
  12. coach — pulled by horses
  13. wind — moving air
  14. patient — calm and waiting
  15. wind — to turn a key
  16. chair — a leader
  17. cold — an illness
  18. cold — not warm
  19. chair — to sit on
  20. clip — to cut
  21. patient — a sick person
  22. clip — for paper
  23. face — part of the head
  24. clip — a video

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