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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. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. How do you ________________ your surname?
  3. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  4. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  5. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  6. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  7. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  8. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  9. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  10. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  11. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  12. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  15. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  16. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. That was a fun ________________.
  19. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  20. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  21. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  22. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  23. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  24. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — to cut
  2. spell — letters
  3. clip — a video
  4. capital — a city
  5. net — in sport
  6. capital — money
  7. race — a contest
  8. net — after costs
  9. bat — for baseball
  10. capital — a big letter
  11. net — for catching
  12. game — a kind of play
  13. file — a document
  14. game — wild animals
  15. race — the arms race
  16. clip — for paper
  17. file — a line of people
  18. game — a match
  19. spell — a short time
  20. bat — in an idiom
  21. race — humankind
  22. bat — the animal
  23. spell — magic
  24. file — a tool

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