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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: cold · hide · clip · last · snap · cell · chest · mine

  1. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. False peace will not ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. He was locked up in a ________________.
  7. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  8. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  9. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  12. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  15. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  16. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  17. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  18. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  19. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  20. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  21. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  22. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  23. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  24. She's sitting on a gold ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chest — of your body
  2. clip — to cut
  3. last — to go on
  4. cold — an illness
  5. clip — for paper
  6. cell — in a prison
  7. chest — a box
  8. snap — to speak sharply
  9. hide — animal skin
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. cell — in biology
  12. chest — of your body
  13. cold — not warm
  14. last — final
  15. clip — a video
  16. last — finally
  17. cell — a phone
  18. mine — an explosive
  19. mine — belonging to me
  20. snap — to snap out of it
  21. snap — to click
  22. hide — to keep secret
  23. hide — to keep secret
  24. mine — for digging

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