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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: ball · shower · bear · stem · tear · degree · chest · clip

  1. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  4. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  5. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  6. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  7. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  8. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  9. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  10. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  11. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  12. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  13. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  14. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  15. The King held a masked ________________.
  16. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  17. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  18. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  21. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  22. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  23. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. stem — to come from
  2. clip — to cut
  3. bear — to put up with
  4. clip — a video
  5. chest — of your body
  6. bear — the animal
  7. ball — a great time
  8. tear — from crying
  9. chest — a box
  10. tear — to rip
  11. stem — a stem cell
  12. shower — rain
  13. bear — the animal
  14. tear — from crying
  15. ball — a dance
  16. degree — an amount
  17. chest — of your body
  18. degree — from a university
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. shower — to wash
  21. degree — temperature
  22. ball — a round shape
  23. stem — of a plant
  24. clip — for paper

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