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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. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  2. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  3. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  6. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  7. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  8. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  9. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  10. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  11. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  12. The ball is in your ________________.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  17. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  18. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  19. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  20. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  21. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  22. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.

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

Answer key

  1. court — of a king
  2. field — for sport
  3. fall — the season
  4. cold — not warm
  5. bark — of a tree
  6. clip — for paper
  7. field — farmland
  8. clip — a video
  9. bark — to shout
  10. court — of law
  11. mine — belonging to me
  12. court — for sport
  13. clip — to cut
  14. fall — to drop
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. bark — a dog's sound
  17. fall — to drop
  18. stem — to come from
  19. mine — an explosive
  20. field — a subject
  21. stem — of a plant
  22. mine — for digging
  23. cold — an illness
  24. stem — a stem cell

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