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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. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  2. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. When are we going to ________________?
  5. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  6. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  7. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  8. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  9. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  10. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  11. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  12. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  13. Vegetables slowly ________________ towards the light.
  14. He is as ________________ as a wolf.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. Don't ________________ against the wall. It's just been painted.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  19. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  20. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  21. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  24. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.

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

Answer key

  1. field — for sport
  2. cap — a hat
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. land — to come down
  5. field — farmland
  6. shower — rain
  7. shower — to wash
  8. land — a country
  9. field — a subject
  10. straw — a straw man
  11. cap — of ice
  12. land — ground
  13. lean — to bend
  14. lean — thin
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. lean — to rest against
  17. file — a line of people
  18. file — a tool
  19. cold — an illness
  20. straw — to clutch at straws
  21. cap — a lid
  22. cold — not warm
  23. straw — dry grass
  24. file — a document

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