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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. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  2. The cuffs of his ________________ jacket are badly frayed.
  3. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  4. Flower arranging is a traditional ________________ in Japan.
  5. That was a fun ________________.
  6. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  7. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  8. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  9. Small ________________ should stay in the harbor during the storm.
  10. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  11. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  14. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  15. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. Positive actions can inspire others to follow ________________.
  18. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  19. He spent years learning his ________________ as a carpenter.
  20. When will it ________________ you to start?
  21. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  22. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. The ball hit the back of the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. net — after costs
  2. suit — clothes
  3. clip — for paper
  4. craft — a handicraft
  5. game — a match
  6. chest — of your body
  7. chest — of your body
  8. field — a subject
  9. craft — boats
  10. field — for sport
  11. field — farmland
  12. cold — not warm
  13. net — for catching
  14. cold — an illness
  15. game — wild animals
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. suit — in cards
  18. chest — a box
  19. craft — a skill
  20. suit — to fit
  21. clip — a video
  22. clip — to cut
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. net — in sport

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

Make a worksheet (0 words)

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