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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 in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  2. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  3. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  4. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  5. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  6. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  7. Have you settled on a ________________?
  8. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  9. That was a fun ________________.
  10. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  11. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  12. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  13. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  14. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  15. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  16. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  17. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  20. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  21. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  22. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  23. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  24. The flowers bloom in the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. bat — for baseball
  2. spring — a coil
  3. tear — to rip
  4. drill — army training
  5. game — a kind of play
  6. wound — past of 'wind'
  7. date — on the calendar
  8. field — a subject
  9. game — a match
  10. field — for sport
  11. tear — from crying
  12. wound — an injury
  13. wound — an injury
  14. tear — from crying
  15. date — on the calendar
  16. bat — in an idiom
  17. field — farmland
  18. bat — the animal
  19. date — the fruit
  20. drill — a practice
  21. spring — of water
  22. drill — the tool
  23. game — wild animals
  24. spring — the season

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