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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.

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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: clip · fall · saw · press · hand · capital · cell · court

  1. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  3. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  4. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  5. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  6. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  7. She's very handy with a ________________.
  8. He was locked up in a ________________.
  9. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  10. The ball is in your ________________.
  11. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  12. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  13. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  14. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  15. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  16. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  17. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  18. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  19. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  20. He works in a ________________ mill.
  21. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. Did you ________________ the button?
  24. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. fall — to drop
  3. press — a publisher
  4. capital — a city
  5. clip — to cut
  6. hand — help
  7. saw — the tool
  8. cell — in a prison
  9. capital — money
  10. court — for sport
  11. saw — past of 'see'
  12. hand — part of the body
  13. court — of a king
  14. fall — to drop
  15. cell — in biology
  16. cell — a phone
  17. fall — the season
  18. hand — in cards
  19. capital — a big letter
  20. saw — the tool
  21. court — of law
  22. clip — a video
  23. press — to push
  24. press — newspapers

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