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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. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  3. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. Have you found your soul ________________?
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  8. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  9. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  10. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  11. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. Tom was very happy that his son returned home ________________ and sound.
  14. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. Is it ________________ for us to be here?
  19. He has no idea where the ________________ is.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  22. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  23. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  24. Beijing is the ________________ of China.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. capital — money
  3. field — for sport
  4. file — a tool
  5. mate — a partner
  6. cold — an illness
  7. spring — of water
  8. mate — to breed
  9. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  10. file — a document
  11. kid — child
  12. field — a subject
  13. safe — out of danger
  14. mate — a friend
  15. cold — not warm
  16. spring — a coil
  17. file — a line of people
  18. safe — out of danger
  19. safe — a strongbox
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. capital — a big letter
  22. spring — the season
  23. field — farmland
  24. capital — a city

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