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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 116 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. The water is too ________________.
  2. That must've been a ________________.
  3. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  4. He had ________________ pain while walking.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  7. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  8. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  11. The giraffe protected her ________________ with great courage.
  12. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  13. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  14. He was locked up in a ________________.
  15. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  16. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  17. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  18. The giraffe did all she could to defend her ________________.
  19. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  20. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  24. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. rush — a thrill
  3. hand — part of the body
  4. calf — of the leg
  5. clip — for paper
  6. hand — in cards
  7. clip — a video
  8. clip — to cut
  9. cold — an illness
  10. trunk — of an elephant
  11. calf — a young animal
  12. rush — to hurry
  13. rush — hurry
  14. cell — in a prison
  15. trunk — of a car
  16. hand — help
  17. spring — of water
  18. calf — a young animal
  19. trunk — of a tree
  20. cell — in biology
  21. spring — a coil
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. spring — the season
  24. cell — a phone

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