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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.

Words on the sheet
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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 · tube · tear · clip · field · can · content

  1. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  4. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  5. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  6. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. I'll be taking the ________________.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  11. ________________ you help me carry this box?
  12. Recycle the empty soda ________________.
  13. Tom opened a ________________ of soup.
  14. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  15. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  19. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  20. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  21. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  22. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  23. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  24. Check the label for the sugar ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. mine — belonging to me
  2. tear — from crying
  3. tear — from crying
  4. mine — for digging
  5. content — happy
  6. tube — a container
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. tube — the underground
  9. cold — not warm
  10. mine — an explosive
  11. can — to be able to
  12. can — a tin
  13. can — a tin
  14. tear — to rip
  15. content — videos and posts
  16. clip — a video
  17. cold — an illness
  18. clip — to cut
  19. field — farmland
  20. field — for sport
  21. tube — in a tire
  22. field — a subject
  23. clip — for paper
  24. content — the amount

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