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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. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  3. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  4. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  5. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  6. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  7. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  12. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  13. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  14. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  15. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  16. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  17. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  18. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  19. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. When are we going to ________________?
  22. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  23. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  24. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. straw — a straw man
  3. bear — to put up with
  4. net — for catching
  5. bear — the animal
  6. bear — the animal
  7. land — ground
  8. hand — help
  9. net — after costs
  10. clip — a video
  11. spring — the season
  12. land — a country
  13. spring — a coil
  14. net — in sport
  15. hand — in cards
  16. spring — of water
  17. capital — a city
  18. straw — dry grass
  19. straw — to clutch at straws
  20. clip — to cut
  21. land — to come down
  22. hand — part of the body
  23. capital — a big letter
  24. capital — money

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