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

Word bank: nail · swing · rash · race · clip · cold · chest · pound

  1. The party suffered for the ________________ of party-switching.
  2. Don't do anything ________________.
  3. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  4. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  5. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  6. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  7. I seem to be developing a ________________.
  8. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  11. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  12. David sat on the ________________.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  15. She broke her ________________ while washing the dishes.
  16. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  20. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  21. He drove in a ________________ with his hammer.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  24. The ________________ went through the wall.

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

Answer key

  1. rash — a series
  2. rash — hasty
  3. clip — a video
  4. chest — of your body
  5. chest — a box
  6. race — humankind
  7. rash — on the skin
  8. swing — in golf
  9. cold — an illness
  10. swing — music
  11. pound — to hit hard
  12. swing — to play on
  13. clip — to cut
  14. chest — of your body
  15. nail — on a finger
  16. pound — a weight
  17. clip — for paper
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. race — a contest
  20. pound — for dogs
  21. nail — for a hammer
  22. cold — not warm
  23. race — the arms race
  24. nail — for a hammer

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