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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. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  2. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  3. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  6. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  7. Don't do anything ________________.
  8. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  9. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  10. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  11. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  16. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  17. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  18. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  19. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  20. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  21. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  22. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  23. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. bear — the animal
  3. clip — to cut
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. rash — a series
  6. clip — for paper
  7. rash — hasty
  8. file — a tool
  9. file — a document
  10. bear — to put up with
  11. snap — to snap out of it
  12. spring — the season
  13. bat — the animal
  14. spring — a coil
  15. rash — on the skin
  16. file — a line of people
  17. bear — the animal
  18. clip — a video
  19. rule — government
  20. rule — a law
  21. rule — to rule out
  22. spring — of water
  23. snap — to speak sharply
  24. bat — for baseball

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