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

Word bank: race · vault · last · cold · capital · clip

  1. The ceiling is a plaster ________________ painted with stars.
  2. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  3. Champaud competed in the parallel bars, ________________, and pommel horse events.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  6. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  7. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  8. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. False peace will not ________________.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  16. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  17. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  18. Lukas kept the diamonds in a locked ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. vault — an arched ceiling
  2. last — final
  3. vault — in gymnastics
  4. cold — an illness
  5. clip — a video
  6. capital — a big letter
  7. last — finally
  8. race — a contest
  9. clip — to cut
  10. cold — not warm
  11. capital — money
  12. clip — for paper
  13. last — to go on
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. race — the arms race
  16. race — humankind
  17. capital — a city
  18. vault — a safe

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