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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: wound · ball · fork · clip · straw · row · club · cold

  1. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  2. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  5. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  6. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  7. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  8. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  11. The King held a masked ________________.
  12. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  13. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  14. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  15. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  16. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  17. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  18. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  19. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  20. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  21. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  22. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  23. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  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. straw — dry grass
  2. fork — a garden tool
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. row — a quarrel
  5. club — for golf
  6. clip — a video
  7. ball — a great time
  8. straw — a straw man
  9. cold — not warm
  10. ball — a round shape
  11. ball — a dance
  12. cold — an illness
  13. clip — for paper
  14. straw — to clutch at straws
  15. row — to paddle
  16. fork — in a road
  17. wound — an injury
  18. fork — to eat with
  19. wound — an injury
  20. club — for dancing
  21. wound — past of 'wind'
  22. row — a line
  23. club — a group
  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