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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: bound · degree · fan · cold · snap · board · land · clip

  1. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  2. When are we going to ________________?
  3. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  4. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. The captain is giving the order to ________________ the ship.
  7. ________________ games are popular in Germany.
  8. The water is too ________________.
  9. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  10. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  16. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  17. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  18. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  21. I'm currently on the ________________ of directors.
  22. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  23. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  24. That was ________________ to happen.

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

Answer key

  1. bound — obliged
  2. land — to come down
  3. fan — a supporter
  4. degree — an amount
  5. clip — to cut
  6. board — to get on
  7. board — a flat piece
  8. cold — not warm
  9. fan — to cool the air
  10. snap — to click
  11. clip — a video
  12. clip — for paper
  13. snap — to speak sharply
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. land — a country
  16. bound — tied together
  17. snap — to snap out of it
  18. fan — a supporter
  19. cold — an illness
  20. degree — from a university
  21. board — a committee
  22. degree — temperature
  23. land — ground
  24. bound — certain

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