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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: cold · mine · cell · bark · capital · clip · rest · stick

  1. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  2. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  3. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  4. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  5. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. Speak softly and carry a big ________________.
  11. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  12. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  13. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  14. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  15. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  16. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  17. This is the first time I've ever walked with a ________________.
  18. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  19. Fiction is obliged to ________________ to possibilities. Truth isn't.
  20. He was locked up in a ________________.
  21. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  22. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  23. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  24. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.

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

Answer key

  1. capital — money
  2. capital — a big letter
  3. cell — a phone
  4. capital — a city
  5. bark — a dog's sound
  6. cold — not warm
  7. clip — for paper
  8. cold — the Cold War
  9. cold — an illness
  10. stick — a piece of wood
  11. rest — what's left
  12. mine — an explosive
  13. cell — in biology
  14. clip — a video
  15. rest — what's left
  16. mine — belonging to me
  17. stick — a piece of wood
  18. rest — a break
  19. stick — to attach or keep to
  20. cell — in a prison
  21. mine — for digging
  22. bark — of a tree
  23. bark — to shout
  24. clip — to cut

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