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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 120 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. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  2. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  3. The ball is in your ________________.
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  6. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  7. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  8. There's a computer ________________ on the table.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  11. It's hotel ________________. Please let me in.
  12. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  13. The ________________ market has crashed.
  14. The old man leaned on his ________________.
  15. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  16. The office ________________ worked quickly and efficiently to resolve the problem.
  17. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  18. The potato ________________ was salty and crunchy.
  19. Algeria has become a bargaining ________________ in a global game of poker.
  20. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  21. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  22. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  23. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  24. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.

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

Answer key

  1. stock — a soup base
  2. degree — from a university
  3. court — for sport
  4. field — farmland
  5. stock — goods
  6. degree — an amount
  7. clip — for paper
  8. chip — in a computer
  9. degree — temperature
  10. mine — an explosive
  11. staff — employees
  12. court — of a king
  13. stock — shares
  14. staff — a stick
  15. clip — a video
  16. staff — employees
  17. mine — belonging to me
  18. chip — to eat
  19. chip — for betting
  20. clip — to cut
  21. field — for sport
  22. court — of law
  23. mine — for digging
  24. field — a subject

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