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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: wind · snap · fan · capital · clip · spring · arm · cold

  1. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  2. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  3. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  4. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  5. The water is too ________________.
  6. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  7. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  8. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  9. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  10. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  11. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  12. My father caught me by the ________________.
  13. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  14. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  17. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  18. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  19. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  20. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  21. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  22. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  23. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  24. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — the Cold War
  2. spring — of water
  3. snap — to speak sharply
  4. wind — moving air
  5. cold — not warm
  6. clip — a video
  7. spring — a coil
  8. fan — a supporter
  9. capital — a city
  10. fan — a supporter
  11. spring — the season
  12. arm — part of the body
  13. fan — to cool the air
  14. clip — to cut
  15. cold — an illness
  16. snap — to click
  17. wind — moving air
  18. wind — to turn a key
  19. arm — part of the body
  20. snap — to snap out of it
  21. clip — for paper
  22. arm — a part of something
  23. capital — a big letter
  24. capital — money

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