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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. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  2. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  3. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  4. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  5. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  6. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  7. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  8. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  9. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  10. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  17. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  18. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  19. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  20. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  21. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — to sit on
  2. chair — a leader
  3. squash — the sport
  4. trunk — of an elephant
  5. squash — the vegetable
  6. tear — from crying
  7. trunk — of a car
  8. scale — size or range
  9. scale — for weighing
  10. tear — to rip
  11. cold — not warm
  12. tear — from crying
  13. file — a document
  14. clip — for paper
  15. cold — an illness
  16. scale — in music
  17. trunk — of a tree
  18. clip — to cut
  19. chair — a professorship
  20. file — a tool
  21. squash — to crush
  22. clip — a video
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. file — a line of people

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