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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: shower · cold · club · bat · can · clip · stem · swing

  1. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. Recycle the empty soda ________________.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. David sat on the ________________.
  8. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  9. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  10. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  11. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  12. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  15. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  16. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  17. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  18. Tom opened a ________________ of soup.
  19. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. ________________ you help me carry this box?
  22. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  23. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. clip — a video
  3. stem — of a plant
  4. bat — the animal
  5. can — a tin
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. swing — to play on
  8. club — for golf
  9. club — a group
  10. shower — to wash
  11. bat — for baseball
  12. shower — rain
  13. clip — to cut
  14. club — for dancing
  15. swing — in golf
  16. stem — to come from
  17. shower — a meteor shower
  18. can — a tin
  19. bat — in an idiom
  20. cold — an illness
  21. can — to be able to
  22. stem — a stem cell
  23. swing — music
  24. cold — not warm

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