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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.

Words on the sheet
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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: bat · capital · clip · staff · scale · cold · field · lash

  1. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  2. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  3. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  4. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  5. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  8. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  9. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  17. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  18. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  19. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  20. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  21. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  22. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  23. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  24. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. staff — employees
  2. scale — size or range
  3. staff — a stick
  4. clip — a video
  5. scale — for weighing
  6. cold — not warm
  7. bat — for baseball
  8. staff — employees
  9. lash — a whip stroke
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. clip — for paper
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. field — farmland
  14. bat — the animal
  15. cold — an illness
  16. lash — to lash out
  17. clip — to cut
  18. capital — money
  19. capital — a city
  20. lash — an eyelash
  21. capital — a big letter
  22. field — a subject
  23. field — for sport
  24. scale — in music

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