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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. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  2. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  3. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  4. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The ________________ went through the wall.
  7. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  8. The water is too ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  11. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  12. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  13. He is an ace ________________.
  14. She broke her ________________ while washing the dishes.
  15. He drove in a ________________ with his hammer.
  16. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  17. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  18. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  19. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  20. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  21. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  22. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  23. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  24. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.

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

Answer key

  1. club — for golf
  2. band — a ring
  3. staff — employees
  4. staff — employees
  5. cold — an illness
  6. nail — for a hammer
  7. straw — dry grass
  8. cold — not warm
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. pitcher — a jug
  11. straw — to clutch at straws
  12. club — for dancing
  13. pitcher — in baseball
  14. nail — on a finger
  15. nail — for a hammer
  16. straw — a straw man
  17. band — a music group
  18. clip — a video
  19. clip — for paper
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. band — a rubber band
  22. staff — a stick
  23. club — a group
  24. clip — to cut

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