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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. This shop sells ________________ wines and cheeses.
  2. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  3. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  6. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  7. I got a ________________ for parking in the wrong place.
  8. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  9. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  12. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  13. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  14. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  17. The water is too ________________.
  18. I assure you, everything's ________________.
  19. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  20. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  21. There's no middle ________________.
  22. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  23. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  24. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.

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

Answer key

  1. fine — high quality
  2. pitch — a sales talk
  3. fall — to drop
  4. kid — to tease
  5. kid — child
  6. field — for sport
  7. fine — a penalty
  8. cold — the Cold War
  9. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  10. field — farmland
  11. field — a subject
  12. fall — the season
  13. pitch — completely
  14. pitch — a sports field
  15. cold — an illness
  16. ground — the earth
  17. cold — not warm
  18. fine — all right
  19. fall — to drop
  20. clip — for paper
  21. ground — a position
  22. ground — crushed
  23. clip — a video
  24. clip — to cut

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