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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: cold · clip · band · rush · chair · suit · bark · court

  1. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  2. Take your time. There's no ________________.
  3. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. That must've been a ________________.
  6. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  7. You shouldn't ________________ things.
  8. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  9. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  10. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  11. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  12. The cuffs of his ________________ jacket are badly frayed.
  13. The ball is in your ________________.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. Positive actions can inspire others to follow ________________.
  16. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  19. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  20. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  21. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. When will it ________________ you to start?
  24. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chair — to sit on
  2. rush — hurry
  3. bark — of a tree
  4. cold — an illness
  5. rush — a thrill
  6. chair — a professorship
  7. rush — to hurry
  8. clip — to cut
  9. court — of a king
  10. bark — to shout
  11. court — of law
  12. suit — clothes
  13. court — for sport
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. suit — in cards
  16. chair — a leader
  17. clip — for paper
  18. band — a rubber band
  19. clip — a video
  20. bark — a dog's sound
  21. band — a ring
  22. cold — not warm
  23. suit — to fit
  24. band — a music group

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