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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. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  3. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  4. The light ________________ burned out.
  5. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  6. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  7. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  8. He was locked up in a ________________.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  11. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  12. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. A ________________ is a veil over the lips.
  15. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  16. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  17. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.
  18. The hunter does not ________________ down with the prey.
  19. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  20. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  21. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  22. I've got to change the light ________________.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. Is it always a sin to tell a ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. snap — to click
  2. shower — rain
  3. snap — to speak sharply
  4. bulb — for light
  5. march — the month
  6. march — the month
  7. clip — a video
  8. cell — in a prison
  9. cold — not warm
  10. shower — a meteor shower
  11. snap — to snap out of it
  12. cell — a phone
  13. cold — an illness
  14. lie — an untruth
  15. clip — to cut
  16. shower — to wash
  17. bulb — of a plant
  18. lie — to recline
  19. march — music
  20. cell — in biology
  21. clip — for paper
  22. bulb — for light
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. lie — an untruth

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