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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. Have you met the new head ________________?
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  4. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  14. They retained the League and Cup in his second ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  17. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  18. Did you ________________ the meat?
  19. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  20. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. Spring is a pleasant ________________.
  23. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  24. Biology is a ________________ of science.

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

Answer key

  1. coach — a trainer
  2. shower — to wash
  3. bass — low music
  4. bass — the fish
  5. clip — to cut
  6. bass — the instrument
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. cold — an illness
  9. coach — pulled by horses
  10. clip — a video
  11. coach — a trainer
  12. clip — for paper
  13. shower — rain
  14. season — in sport
  15. cold — not warm
  16. shower — a meteor shower
  17. branch — of a bank
  18. season — to add flavour
  19. spring — of water
  20. spring — the season
  21. spring — a coil
  22. season — of the year
  23. branch — of a tree
  24. branch — a division

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