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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 hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  2. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  5. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  6. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  9. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  10. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  11. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  12. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  13. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  14. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  15. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  16. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  17. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  18. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  19. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  20. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  23. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  24. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — of water
  2. chip — in a computer
  3. bat — the animal
  4. mine — an explosive
  5. capital — a city
  6. race — the arms race
  7. clip — for paper
  8. clip — to cut
  9. capital — a big letter
  10. mine — for digging
  11. bat — for baseball
  12. capital — money
  13. race — a contest
  14. chip — to eat
  15. clip — a video
  16. spring — the season
  17. chair — to sit on
  18. race — humankind
  19. mine — belonging to me
  20. chair — a leader
  21. spring — a coil
  22. chair — a professorship
  23. bat — in an idiom
  24. chip — for betting

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