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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. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  2. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  3. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  4. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  5. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  8. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  9. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  10. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  11. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. You don't need to ________________ round.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  16. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  17. Have you settled on a ________________?
  18. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  19. Have you met the new head ________________?
  20. We're almost out of ________________.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  23. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. track — to keep track
  2. coach — pulled by horses
  3. branch — of a bank
  4. bat — the animal
  5. track — a song
  6. cold — an illness
  7. date — the fruit
  8. track — a path
  9. pop — music
  10. field — a subject
  11. bat — for baseball
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. pop — to visit
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. coach — a trainer
  16. date — on the calendar
  17. date — on the calendar
  18. branch — a division
  19. coach — a trainer
  20. pop — soda
  21. cold — not warm
  22. field — for sport
  23. branch — of a tree
  24. field — farmland

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