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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 120 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: deal · stick · cold · march · land · chest · sharp · clip

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  3. This is the first time I've ever walked with a ________________.
  4. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  5. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  6. It's one o'clock ________________.
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. When are we going to ________________?
  10. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  11. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  12. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  13. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  14. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  15. Speak softly and carry a big ________________.
  16. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  17. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  21. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  22. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  23. Fiction is obliged to ________________ to possibilities. Truth isn't.
  24. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. chest — of your body
  3. stick — a piece of wood
  4. deal — to handle
  5. deal — a big deal
  6. sharp — exactly
  7. clip — to cut
  8. clip — for paper
  9. land — to come down
  10. chest — of your body
  11. land — ground
  12. chest — a box
  13. deal — an agreement
  14. land — a country
  15. stick — a piece of wood
  16. sharp — with an edge
  17. march — music
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. cold — not warm
  20. clip — a video
  21. march — the month
  22. sharp — clever
  23. stick — to attach or keep to
  24. march — the month

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