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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. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  2. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  3. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  7. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  8. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  9. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  14. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  15. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  18. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  19. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  20. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  21. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  22. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  23. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  24. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bat — the animal
  2. wax — in the ear
  3. band — a rubber band
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. clip — to cut
  6. chest — a box
  7. straw — dry grass
  8. band — a music group
  9. fan — a supporter
  10. field — farmland
  11. wax — to grow
  12. clip — for paper
  13. wax — for sculpting
  14. fan — a supporter
  15. bat — for baseball
  16. field — for sport
  17. chest — of your body
  18. straw — to clutch at straws
  19. straw — a straw man
  20. field — a subject
  21. fan — to cool the air
  22. chest — of your body
  23. clip — a video
  24. band — a ring

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