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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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468
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: row · pitch · face · clip · cold · net · dip · bat

  1. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  5. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  6. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  7. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  8. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  9. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  10. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  11. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  12. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  13. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  14. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  15. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  16. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  17. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  18. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  21. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  22. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  23. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  24. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. cold — an illness
  3. cold — not warm
  4. clip — to cut
  5. bat — the animal
  6. pitch — a sports field
  7. face — part of the head
  8. dip — to dunk
  9. net — in sport
  10. net — after costs
  11. dip — a sauce
  12. face — to point toward
  13. row — a line
  14. bat — in an idiom
  15. bat — for baseball
  16. face — to confront
  17. pitch — completely
  18. net — for catching
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. row — a quarrel
  21. clip — a video
  22. row — to paddle
  23. dip — to sink
  24. pitch — a sales talk

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