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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. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  3. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  4. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  5. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  6. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  7. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  8. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  9. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. How do you ________________ your surname?
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  17. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  18. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  21. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  22. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. spell — a short time
  3. chair — a professorship
  4. stem — to come from
  5. chest — of your body
  6. chest — of your body
  7. stem — a stem cell
  8. wake — before a funeral
  9. stem — of a plant
  10. clip — a video
  11. chest — a box
  12. spring — the season
  13. spell — letters
  14. spring — a coil
  15. cold — not warm
  16. chair — to sit on
  17. spell — magic
  18. clip — to cut
  19. cold — an illness
  20. wake — to stop sleeping
  21. chair — a leader
  22. spring — of water
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. wake — a trail

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