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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: face · file · clip · race · shower · cold · fan · cell

  1. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  2. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  3. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  4. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  8. The water is too ________________.
  9. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  10. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  11. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  12. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  13. He was locked up in a ________________.
  14. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  19. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  20. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  23. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  24. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. shower — to wash
  2. file — a line of people
  3. cell — a phone
  4. race — the arms race
  5. clip — to cut
  6. cold — an illness
  7. file — a document
  8. cold — not warm
  9. fan — a supporter
  10. fan — to cool the air
  11. fan — a supporter
  12. race — humankind
  13. cell — in a prison
  14. shower — rain
  15. file — a tool
  16. cell — in biology
  17. clip — for paper
  18. face — to point toward
  19. race — a contest
  20. face — to confront
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. face — part of the head
  23. shower — a meteor shower
  24. clip — a video

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