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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. ________________ my words: he'll be late again.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  6. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  7. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  8. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  9. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  10. She got the top ________________ in the exam.
  11. The hot cup left a ________________ on the table.
  12. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  13. He works in a ________________ mill.
  14. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  15. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  16. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  20. She's very handy with a ________________.
  21. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.

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

Answer key

  1. mark — to pay attention
  2. cold — an illness
  3. wind — to turn a key
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. row — a line
  6. row — to paddle
  7. clip — a video
  8. trunk — of a car
  9. band — a music group
  10. mark — a grade
  11. mark — a trace
  12. band — a ring
  13. saw — the tool
  14. wind — moving air
  15. trunk — of a tree
  16. trunk — of an elephant
  17. clip — for paper
  18. wind — moving air
  19. row — a quarrel
  20. saw — the tool
  21. saw — past of 'see'
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. cold — not warm
  24. clip — to cut

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