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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: clip · branch · cell · last · cold · lean · snap · chest

  1. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  2. He is as ________________ as a wolf.
  3. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  4. Vegetables slowly ________________ towards the light.
  5. Don't ________________ against the wall. It's just been painted.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  12. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  13. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  14. He was locked up in a ________________.
  15. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  16. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  17. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  18. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  19. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  20. False peace will not ________________.
  21. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  22. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!

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

Answer key

  1. last — final
  2. lean — thin
  3. last — finally
  4. lean — to bend
  5. lean — to rest against
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. branch — a division
  8. clip — a video
  9. chest — of your body
  10. cold — not warm
  11. chest — a box
  12. chest — of your body
  13. cell — in biology
  14. cell — in a prison
  15. snap — to click
  16. branch — of a tree
  17. snap — to speak sharply
  18. clip — for paper
  19. branch — of a bank
  20. last — to go on
  21. snap — to snap out of it
  22. clip — to cut
  23. cold — an illness
  24. cell — a phone

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