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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  3. Tom got himself in a ________________.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  6. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  7. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  8. That was ________________ to happen.
  9. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  15. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  16. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  17. Would you like some apricot ________________?
  18. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  19. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  20. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  21. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  22. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  23. The bus was late because of the traffic ________________.
  24. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. tear — from crying
  3. jam — a tight spot
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. bound — obliged
  6. kid — child
  7. band — a ring
  8. bound — certain
  9. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  10. field — farmland
  11. tear — to rip
  12. field — a subject
  13. clip — a video
  14. band — a music group
  15. capital — a big letter
  16. tear — from crying
  17. jam — to spread on bread
  18. capital — a city
  19. clip — to cut
  20. bound — tied together
  21. clip — for paper
  22. capital — money
  23. jam — in traffic
  24. field — for sport

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