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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. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  2. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  3. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  4. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  7. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  8. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. How do you ________________ your surname?
  11. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  12. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  13. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  14. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  17. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  18. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  19. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  20. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  21. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  22. That was a fun ________________.
  23. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  24. The players ran onto the football ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. band — a music group
  2. scale — in music
  3. game — wild animals
  4. prune — to trim
  5. cold — an illness
  6. clip — a video
  7. band — a ring
  8. band — a rubber band
  9. clip — to cut
  10. spell — letters
  11. game — a kind of play
  12. pitch — a sales talk
  13. scale — for weighing
  14. spell — a short time
  15. cold — not warm
  16. cold — the Cold War
  17. prune — to trim
  18. scale — size or range
  19. prune — the fruit
  20. clip — for paper
  21. pitch — completely
  22. game — a match
  23. spell — magic
  24. pitch — a sports field

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