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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: tube · fall · chest · row · face · clip · trunk · bat

  1. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  2. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  3. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  6. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  10. I'll be taking the ________________.
  11. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  12. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  13. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  14. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  15. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  16. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  19. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  20. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  21. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  22. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  23. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  24. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.

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

Answer key

  1. row — a quarrel
  2. fall — to drop
  3. tube — a container
  4. bat — the animal
  5. trunk — of a car
  6. chest — a box
  7. clip — for paper
  8. clip — a video
  9. row — a line
  10. tube — the underground
  11. clip — to cut
  12. face — to confront
  13. chest — of your body
  14. trunk — of an elephant
  15. fall — to drop
  16. chest — of your body
  17. fall — the season
  18. tube — in a tire
  19. row — to paddle
  20. face — part of the head
  21. bat — in an idiom
  22. bat — for baseball
  23. face — to point toward
  24. trunk — of a tree

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