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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. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  4. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  7. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  10. The ________________ took off on time.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  13. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  14. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  17. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  18. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  19. That was ________________ to happen.
  20. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  21. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  22. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  23. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  24. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.

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

Answer key

  1. band — a ring
  2. clip — a video
  3. content — happy
  4. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  5. clip — to cut
  6. content — videos and posts
  7. dip — to sink
  8. clip — for paper
  9. content — the amount
  10. plane — an aircraft
  11. bat — the animal
  12. kid — to tease
  13. band — a music group
  14. dip — a sauce
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. bound — obliged
  17. dip — to dunk
  18. bound — tied together
  19. bound — certain
  20. bat — for baseball
  21. plane — a tool
  22. kid — child
  23. plane — in geometry
  24. band — a rubber band

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