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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  3. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  4. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  5. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  8. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  9. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  10. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  11. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  12. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  13. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  14. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  15. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  16. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  19. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  20. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  21. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  22. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  23. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  24. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. squash — to crush
  3. file — a line of people
  4. mine — for digging
  5. clip — a video
  6. clip — to cut
  7. squash — the vegetable
  8. straw — dry grass
  9. club — for dancing
  10. mine — belonging to me
  11. degree — an amount
  12. club — for golf
  13. degree — temperature
  14. club — a group
  15. squash — the sport
  16. straw — a straw man
  17. clip — for paper
  18. straw — to clutch at straws
  19. kid — child
  20. file — a document
  21. degree — from a university
  22. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  23. mine — an explosive
  24. file — a tool

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