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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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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 ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  5. The ________________ market has crashed.
  6. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  9. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  10. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  11. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  12. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  15. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  16. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  19. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  20. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  21. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  22. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  23. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  24. What was your ________________ profit last year?

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. pound — a weight
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. clip — to cut
  5. stock — shares
  6. snap — to snap out of it
  7. cold — not warm
  8. face — to confront
  9. net — for catching
  10. scale — in music
  11. scale — size or range
  12. face — part of the head
  13. cold — an illness
  14. stock — goods
  15. pound — to hit hard
  16. snap — to speak sharply
  17. clip — a video
  18. clip — for paper
  19. pound — for dogs
  20. face — to point toward
  21. net — in sport
  22. stock — a soup base
  23. scale — for weighing
  24. net — after costs

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