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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: fall · cold · tear · mine · land · race · clip · court

  1. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  2. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  3. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  4. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  5. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  6. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  7. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  10. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  11. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  12. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  13. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  14. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  17. The ball is in your ________________.
  18. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  19. When are we going to ________________?
  20. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  24. He was blown up by a land ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — a video
  2. tear — from crying
  3. fall — to drop
  4. race — a contest
  5. mine — belonging to me
  6. fall — the season
  7. race — the arms race
  8. clip — for paper
  9. tear — to rip
  10. tear — from crying
  11. land — ground
  12. court — of a king
  13. mine — for digging
  14. clip — to cut
  15. cold — not warm
  16. fall — to drop
  17. court — for sport
  18. land — a country
  19. land — to come down
  20. race — humankind
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. cold — an illness
  23. court — of law
  24. mine — an explosive

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