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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. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  2. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  3. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  4. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  5. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. She's very handy with a ________________.
  8. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  13. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  16. He works in a ________________ mill.
  17. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  18. When are we going to ________________?
  19. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  20. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  21. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  22. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  23. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  24. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. land — a country
  2. bass — the instrument
  3. saw — past of 'see'
  4. clip — for paper
  5. fall — to drop
  6. cold — an illness
  7. saw — the tool
  8. capital — a city
  9. clip — to cut
  10. bass — low music
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. fall — the season
  13. bat — for baseball
  14. cold — not warm
  15. bass — the fish
  16. saw — the tool
  17. fall — to drop
  18. land — to come down
  19. clip — a video
  20. capital — a big letter
  21. bat — the animal
  22. land — ground
  23. bat — in an idiom
  24. capital — money

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