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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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Word bank
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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word from the word bank in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

Word bank: press · snap · cold · clip · kick · row

  1. Did you ________________ the button?
  2. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  3. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  4. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  5. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  8. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  13. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  14. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  15. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  16. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  17. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  18. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.

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

Answer key

  1. press — to push
  2. snap — to speak sharply
  3. kick — in football
  4. kick — with a leg
  5. kick — a thrill
  6. clip — to cut
  7. press — a publisher
  8. cold — the Cold War
  9. cold — not warm
  10. clip — a video
  11. cold — an illness
  12. row — a quarrel
  13. snap — to click
  14. press — newspapers
  15. clip — for paper
  16. snap — to snap out of it
  17. row — a line
  18. row — to paddle

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