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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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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: wax · swing · field · cold · clip · tear · club · dip

  1. David sat on the ________________.
  2. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  3. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  4. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  5. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  8. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  9. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  10. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  11. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  12. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  13. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  18. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  19. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. swing — to play on
  2. club — for golf
  3. dip — to sink
  4. swing — in golf
  5. clip — a video
  6. cold — not warm
  7. club — for dancing
  8. wax — in the ear
  9. dip — to dunk
  10. tear — from crying
  11. tear — to rip
  12. wax — to grow
  13. swing — music
  14. field — for sport
  15. clip — for paper
  16. tear — from crying
  17. dip — a sauce
  18. clip — to cut
  19. wax — for sculpting
  20. field — farmland
  21. field — a subject
  22. club — a group
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. cold — an illness

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