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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: mine · cold · arm · bark · clip · plane · bat · tear

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  3. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  4. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  5. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  6. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  7. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  8. The ________________ took off on time.
  9. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. My father caught me by the ________________.
  12. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  13. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  14. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  15. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  16. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  19. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  20. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  21. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  22. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. bark — to shout
  3. clip — for paper
  4. tear — from crying
  5. bat — in an idiom
  6. mine — belonging to me
  7. mine — for digging
  8. plane — an aircraft
  9. plane — a tool
  10. cold — not warm
  11. arm — part of the body
  12. mine — an explosive
  13. bat — for baseball
  14. plane — in geometry
  15. tear — from crying
  16. bark — of a tree
  17. clip — a video
  18. arm — a part of something
  19. clip — to cut
  20. arm — part of the body
  21. bat — the animal
  22. tear — to rip
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. bark — a dog's sound

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