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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: wind · bound · chest · rule · land · bulb · row · clip

  1. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  2. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  3. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  4. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  5. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  6. The chairman did not ________________ out the possibility of a disagreement.
  7. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  8. When are we going to ________________?
  9. I've got to change the light ________________.
  10. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  11. The light ________________ burned out.
  12. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  13. That was ________________ to happen.
  14. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  15. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  16. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  20. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  21. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  22. Will civil ________________ and democracy continue in Algeria?
  23. Remember our ________________: no talking to strangers, no matter what.
  24. Plant the tulip ________________ before the first frost.

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

Answer key

  1. wind — moving air
  2. chest — of your body
  3. row — a line
  4. chest — of your body
  5. land — a country
  6. rule — to rule out
  7. bound — obliged
  8. land — to come down
  9. bulb — for light
  10. chest — a box
  11. bulb — for light
  12. row — a quarrel
  13. bound — certain
  14. bound — tied together
  15. land — ground
  16. wind — to turn a key
  17. clip — a video
  18. wind — moving air
  19. row — to paddle
  20. clip — for paper
  21. clip — to cut
  22. rule — government
  23. rule — a law
  24. bulb — of a plant

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