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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. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  7. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  8. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  9. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  10. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  11. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  14. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  17. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  18. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  19. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  20. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  21. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  22. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  23. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  24. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — a video
  2. clip — to cut
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. clip — for paper
  5. cold — an illness
  6. row — to paddle
  7. patient — a sick person
  8. patient — calm and waiting
  9. prune — to trim
  10. tear — from crying
  11. spring — the season
  12. cold — not warm
  13. kid — to tease
  14. spring — of water
  15. spring — a coil
  16. tear — to rip
  17. prune — to trim
  18. row — a line
  19. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  20. patient — a sick person
  21. prune — the fruit
  22. kid — child
  23. row — a quarrel
  24. tear — from crying

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