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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 120 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: rush · clip · cold · field · kick · chip · vault · hand

  1. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  3. Lukas kept the diamonds in a locked ________________.
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  6. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  7. The water is too ________________.
  8. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  9. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  10. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  11. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  12. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  13. That must've been a ________________.
  14. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  15. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  16. Champaud competed in the parallel bars, ________________, and pommel horse events.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  19. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  20. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  21. The ceiling is a plaster ________________ painted with stars.
  22. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  23. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  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. clip — to cut
  2. cold — the Cold War
  3. vault — a safe
  4. field — farmland
  5. rush — hurry
  6. clip — for paper
  7. cold — not warm
  8. field — a subject
  9. hand — part of the body
  10. chip — to eat
  11. chip — for betting
  12. kick — a thrill
  13. rush — a thrill
  14. hand — in cards
  15. field — for sport
  16. vault — in gymnastics
  17. clip — a video
  18. rush — to hurry
  19. kick — in football
  20. chip — in a computer
  21. vault — an arched ceiling
  22. hand — help
  23. kick — with a leg
  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