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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: mark · kid · last · shower · pound · clip · cold · hand

  1. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  4. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  7. False peace will not ________________.
  8. ________________ my words: he'll be late again.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. She got the top ________________ in the exam.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  14. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  15. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  18. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  21. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  22. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  23. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  24. The hot cup left a ________________ on the table.

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

Answer key

  1. shower — rain
  2. cold — not warm
  3. pound — a weight
  4. last — final
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. pound — for dogs
  7. last — to go on
  8. mark — to pay attention
  9. clip — to cut
  10. mark — a grade
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. clip — for paper
  13. hand — help
  14. kid — child
  15. last — finally
  16. clip — a video
  17. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  18. shower — to wash
  19. cold — an illness
  20. kid — to tease
  21. pound — to hit hard
  22. shower — a meteor shower
  23. hand — in cards
  24. mark — a trace

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