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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 116 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: branch · squash · file · staff · bat · hand · clip · kid

  1. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  2. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  3. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  6. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  7. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  8. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  11. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  12. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  13. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  14. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  15. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  16. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  17. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  18. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  19. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  20. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  21. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  22. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  23. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. branch — of a tree
  2. squash — the sport
  3. clip — a video
  4. hand — help
  5. bat — the animal
  6. staff — employees
  7. staff — employees
  8. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. clip — for paper
  11. hand — in cards
  12. file — a line of people
  13. file — a tool
  14. kid — child
  15. hand — part of the body
  16. clip — to cut
  17. kid — to tease
  18. squash — the vegetable
  19. file — a document
  20. branch — a division
  21. staff — a stick
  22. branch — of a bank
  23. squash — to crush
  24. bat — for baseball

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