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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. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  5. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  6. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  9. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  10. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  11. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  12. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  13. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  14. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  15. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  16. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  17. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  18. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  19. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  20. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  21. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  22. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  23. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  24. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. snap — to speak sharply
  3. degree — an amount
  4. fall — the season
  5. tear — from crying
  6. tear — from crying
  7. degree — temperature
  8. mine — for digging
  9. race — a contest
  10. clip — to cut
  11. tear — to rip
  12. degree — from a university
  13. fall — to drop
  14. spring — of water
  15. spring — a coil
  16. race — the arms race
  17. mine — an explosive
  18. spring — the season
  19. fall — to drop
  20. mine — belonging to me
  21. clip — a video
  22. snap — to snap out of it
  23. race — humankind
  24. snap — to click

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