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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 · spring · shower · capital · wind · cell · pit · pound

  1. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  4. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  5. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  6. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  7. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  8. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  9. Boris sat near the fire ________________.
  10. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  13. Have you ever swallowed an apricot ________________?
  14. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. Jarno Trulli was disqualified for passing a red light at the ________________ exit.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  19. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  20. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  21. He was locked up in a ________________.
  22. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  23. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  24. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.

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

Answer key

  1. spring — of water
  2. clip — to cut
  3. capital — a city
  4. pound — a weight
  5. capital — a big letter
  6. pound — for dogs
  7. cell — a phone
  8. wind — moving air
  9. pit — a hole
  10. wind — to turn a key
  11. clip — a video
  12. shower — rain
  13. pit — a fruit stone
  14. wind — moving air
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. pit — in a race
  17. clip — for paper
  18. spring — a coil
  19. capital — money
  20. shower — to wash
  21. cell — in a prison
  22. spring — the season
  23. cell — in biology
  24. pound — to hit hard

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