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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 asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  2. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  3. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  4. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  7. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  8. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  9. That was a fun ________________.
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  12. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  13. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  14. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  15. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  20. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  21. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  22. How do you ________________ your surname?
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.

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

Answer key

  1. spell — magic
  2. spell — a short time
  3. capital — money
  4. capital — a big letter
  5. clip — for paper
  6. tear — from crying
  7. game — a kind of play
  8. straw — a straw man
  9. game — a match
  10. clip — a video
  11. wind — to turn a key
  12. capital — a city
  13. straw — dry grass
  14. straw — to clutch at straws
  15. clip — to cut
  16. cold — an illness
  17. wind — moving air
  18. cold — not warm
  19. tear — from crying
  20. game — wild animals
  21. wind — moving air
  22. spell — letters
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. tear — to rip

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