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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. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  2. Here is a list of ________________ job openings.
  3. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  4. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  5. Wood does not conduct electric ________________.
  6. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  7. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  8. Let us try to swim against the ________________.
  9. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  12. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  13. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  16. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  19. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  20. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  21. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  22. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  23. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  24. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. rule — government
  2. current — happening now
  3. cold — an illness
  4. clip — a video
  5. current — electric
  6. craft — a handicraft
  7. rule — to rule out
  8. current — of water
  9. capital — a big letter
  10. clip — for paper
  11. clip — to cut
  12. shower — to wash
  13. capital — a city
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. craft — boats
  16. craft — a skill
  17. cold — not warm
  18. shower — a meteor shower
  19. rule — a law
  20. shower — rain
  21. straw — dry grass
  22. capital — money
  23. straw — a straw man
  24. straw — to clutch at straws

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