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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. I like lots of butter on my ________________ in the morning.
  2. Have you found your soul ________________?
  3. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. Have you met the new head ________________?
  6. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  7. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  8. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  9. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  10. I would like to propose a ________________ on your birthday.
  11. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  12. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  13. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  14. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  15. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. After the show, she was the ________________ of the town.
  18. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  19. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  24. Do you need a ________________ with that?

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

Answer key

  1. toast — bread
  2. mate — a partner
  3. spring — of water
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. coach — a trainer
  6. field — a subject
  7. coach — pulled by horses
  8. kid — to tease
  9. coach — a trainer
  10. toast — a drink to someone
  11. kid — child
  12. file — a document
  13. file — a tool
  14. spring — the season
  15. hand — in cards
  16. field — for sport
  17. toast — the most admired
  18. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  19. mate — a friend
  20. field — farmland
  21. spring — a coil
  22. file — a line of people
  23. mate — to breed
  24. hand — help

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