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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. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  2. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  5. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  6. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  7. He is an ace ________________.
  8. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  9. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  10. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  11. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  16. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  17. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  18. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  19. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  22. False peace will not ________________.
  23. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  24. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.

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

Answer key

  1. pitcher — a jug
  2. race — humankind
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. clip — a video
  5. kick — with a leg
  6. last — finally
  7. pitcher — in baseball
  8. file — a document
  9. kick — a thrill
  10. race — the arms race
  11. hand — help
  12. cold — not warm
  13. file — a tool
  14. cold — an illness
  15. last — final
  16. hand — in cards
  17. kick — in football
  18. race — a contest
  19. file — a line of people
  20. clip — to cut
  21. hand — part of the body
  22. last — to go on
  23. clip — for paper
  24. pitcher — a jug

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