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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 116 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. The water is too ________________.
  2. He drove in a ________________ with his hammer.
  3. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  4. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  5. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  6. The ________________ went through the wall.
  7. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  8. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. He was locked up in a ________________.
  11. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  12. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  13. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  16. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  17. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  18. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  19. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  22. She broke her ________________ while washing the dishes.
  23. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. nail — for a hammer
  3. cell — a phone
  4. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  5. race — a contest
  6. nail — for a hammer
  7. clip — a video
  8. race — the arms race
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. cell — in a prison
  11. wax — in the ear
  12. cell — in biology
  13. wax — to grow
  14. spring — a coil
  15. kid — to tease
  16. wax — for sculpting
  17. race — humankind
  18. cold — an illness
  19. spring — of water
  20. clip — to cut
  21. kid — child
  22. nail — on a finger
  23. spring — the season
  24. clip — for paper

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