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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. The water is too ________________.
  2. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  3. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  4. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  5. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  9. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  10. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  11. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  14. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. The King held a masked ________________.
  17. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  18. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  19. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  20. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  23. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  24. We ________________ up on opposing sides.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. content — happy
  3. wound — an injury
  4. ball — a great time
  5. wound — an injury
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. clip — to cut
  8. staff — employees
  9. clip — a video
  10. staff — a stick
  11. lash — a whip stroke
  12. clip — for paper
  13. content — the amount
  14. lash — to lash out
  15. cold — an illness
  16. ball — a dance
  17. lash — an eyelash
  18. spring — the season
  19. spring — of water
  20. content — videos and posts
  21. spring — a coil
  22. staff — employees
  23. ball — a round shape
  24. wound — past of 'wind'

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