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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. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  3. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  4. My father caught me by the ________________.
  5. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  6. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  7. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  8. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  9. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  12. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  15. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  16. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  17. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  18. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  19. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  20. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  21. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  22. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  23. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  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. capital — a city
  3. trunk — of an elephant
  4. arm — part of the body
  5. wound — an injury
  6. file — a line of people
  7. file — a tool
  8. wound — an injury
  9. chest — of your body
  10. file — a document
  11. wound — past of 'wind'
  12. bat — for baseball
  13. clip — a video
  14. trunk — of a car
  15. capital — a big letter
  16. chest — of your body
  17. trunk — of a tree
  18. arm — part of the body
  19. clip — to cut
  20. bat — in an idiom
  21. bat — the animal
  22. chest — a box
  23. arm — a part of something
  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