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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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Word bank
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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. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  4. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  7. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  8. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  9. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  10. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  11. That was a fun ________________.
  12. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  13. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  14. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  15. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  16. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  17. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  18. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  19. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  20. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  21. He was locked up in a ________________.
  22. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  23. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — to cut
  2. clip — a video
  3. wound — an injury
  4. spring — the season
  5. clip — for paper
  6. cell — a phone
  7. wound — past of 'wind'
  8. game — wild animals
  9. wound — an injury
  10. spring — a coil
  11. game — a match
  12. wind — moving air
  13. tear — from crying
  14. game — a kind of play
  15. wind — moving air
  16. straw — to clutch at straws
  17. straw — dry grass
  18. tear — from crying
  19. spring — of water
  20. wind — to turn a key
  21. cell — in a prison
  22. straw — a straw man
  23. tear — to rip
  24. cell — in biology

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