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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: stem · row · clip · game · wind · patient · last · content

  1. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  2. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  3. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  4. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  5. That was a fun ________________.
  6. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  7. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  8. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  9. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  10. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  11. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  12. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  13. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  14. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  15. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  16. False peace will not ________________.
  17. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  18. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  21. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  22. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  23. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  24. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — a video
  2. clip — for paper
  3. last — finally
  4. content — happy
  5. game — a match
  6. wind — moving air
  7. patient — calm and waiting
  8. stem — of a plant
  9. row — to paddle
  10. game — wild animals
  11. stem — to come from
  12. row — a quarrel
  13. content — the amount
  14. row — a line
  15. wind — moving air
  16. last — to go on
  17. game — a kind of play
  18. patient — a sick person
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. patient — a sick person
  21. content — videos and posts
  22. last — final
  23. clip — to cut
  24. stem — a stem cell

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