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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. Are you the only one who has a ________________ to this door?
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  4. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  5. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  8. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  11. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. Hard work is the ________________ to success.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  18. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  19. He was locked up in a ________________.
  20. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  21. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  22. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  23. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  24. This piece is in a major ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. key — for a lock
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. chair — to sit on
  4. spring — the season
  5. spring — a coil
  6. clip — to cut
  7. tear — to rip
  8. snap — to click
  9. tear — from crying
  10. snap — to speak sharply
  11. tear — from crying
  12. clip — for paper
  13. clip — a video
  14. key — the most important part
  15. cold — not warm
  16. cold — an illness
  17. cell — a phone
  18. chair — a professorship
  19. cell — in a prison
  20. spring — of water
  21. chair — a leader
  22. cell — in biology
  23. snap — to snap out of it
  24. key — in music

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