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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 116 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. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  2. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  3. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  4. The giraffe did all she could to defend her ________________.
  5. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  6. The giraffe protected her ________________ with great courage.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  9. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  10. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  11. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  12. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  13. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  16. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  17. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  21. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  22. He had ________________ pain while walking.
  23. That was a fun ________________.
  24. She's sitting on a gold ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — to cut
  2. mine — belonging to me
  3. field — a subject
  4. calf — a young animal
  5. field — farmland
  6. calf — a young animal
  7. cold — an illness
  8. game — wild animals
  9. clip — a video
  10. field — for sport
  11. mine — an explosive
  12. net — for catching
  13. net — in sport
  14. clip — for paper
  15. capital — a city
  16. net — after costs
  17. capital — a big letter
  18. cold — not warm
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. capital — money
  21. game — a kind of play
  22. calf — of the leg
  23. game — a match
  24. mine — for digging

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