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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 · arm · clip · prune · cap · face · court · row

  1. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  2. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  3. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  4. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  5. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  6. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  7. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  10. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  15. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  16. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  17. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  18. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  19. The ball is in your ________________.
  20. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  21. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  22. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  23. My father caught me by the ________________.
  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. cap — a hat
  2. court — of a king
  3. prune — to trim
  4. row — a line
  5. face — to point toward
  6. cap — a lid
  7. cap — of ice
  8. cold — an illness
  9. row — a quarrel
  10. row — to paddle
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. face — to confront
  13. cold — not warm
  14. prune — to trim
  15. clip — for paper
  16. clip — to cut
  17. face — part of the head
  18. court — of law
  19. court — for sport
  20. arm — a part of something
  21. arm — part of the body
  22. prune — the fruit
  23. arm — part of the body
  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