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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: plane · last · drill · kid · hand · cold · tear · clip

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  3. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  4. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  5. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  6. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  7. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  8. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  9. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  10. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  13. The ________________ took off on time.
  14. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  15. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  16. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  21. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  22. False peace will not ________________.
  23. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  24. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. tear — to rip
  3. plane — a tool
  4. tear — from crying
  5. kid — to tease
  6. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  7. hand — help
  8. clip — to cut
  9. hand — part of the body
  10. last — final
  11. cold — an illness
  12. tear — from crying
  13. plane — an aircraft
  14. drill — army training
  15. plane — in geometry
  16. drill — the tool
  17. clip — for paper
  18. drill — a practice
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. last — finally
  21. kid — child
  22. last — to go on
  23. hand — in cards
  24. clip — a video

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