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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. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  4. I like to ________________ a cookie in coffee.
  5. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  8. They watched the sun ________________ below the horizon.
  9. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  10. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  11. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  12. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  15. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  18. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  19. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  20. That was a fun ________________.
  21. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  22. The ________________ was so hot, it burned my tongue.
  23. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  24. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.

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

Answer key

  1. bowl — a dish
  2. cold — an illness
  3. net — for catching
  4. dip — to dunk
  5. field — a subject
  6. cold — not warm
  7. bowl — to roll
  8. dip — to sink
  9. bowl — a football final
  10. game — wild animals
  11. branch — of a bank
  12. hand — help
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. net — after costs
  15. field — for sport
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. branch — a division
  18. field — farmland
  19. hand — in cards
  20. game — a match
  21. net — in sport
  22. dip — a sauce
  23. hand — part of the body
  24. branch — of a tree

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