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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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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: spring · chest · mark · hand · pitcher · straw · ground · clip

  1. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  4. There's no middle ________________.
  5. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  6. ________________ my words: he'll be late again.
  7. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  8. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  9. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  10. He is an ace ________________.
  11. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  12. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  13. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  14. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  15. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  16. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  17. She got the top ________________ in the exam.
  18. The hot cup left a ________________ on the table.
  19. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  22. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  23. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  24. The flowers bloom in the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. straw — dry grass
  2. clip — a video
  3. spring — a coil
  4. ground — a position
  5. chest — a box
  6. mark — to pay attention
  7. hand — part of the body
  8. pitcher — a jug
  9. ground — the earth
  10. pitcher — in baseball
  11. straw — a straw man
  12. spring — of water
  13. clip — for paper
  14. chest — of your body
  15. hand — in cards
  16. chest — of your body
  17. mark — a grade
  18. mark — a trace
  19. straw — to clutch at straws
  20. clip — to cut
  21. hand — help
  22. pitcher — a jug
  23. ground — crushed
  24. spring — the season

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