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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. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  2. The water is too ________________.
  3. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  8. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  9. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.
  10. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  11. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  12. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  13. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  16. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  17. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  18. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  21. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  22. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  23. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  24. Biology is a ________________ of science.

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

Answer key

  1. wound — an injury
  2. cold — not warm
  3. branch — of a tree
  4. hand — help
  5. field — farmland
  6. cold — an illness
  7. branch — of a bank
  8. hand — part of the body
  9. fork — a garden tool
  10. net — in sport
  11. hand — in cards
  12. file — a tool
  13. field — a subject
  14. field — for sport
  15. fork — in a road
  16. fork — to eat with
  17. wound — an injury
  18. wound — past of 'wind'
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. file — a line of people
  21. net — after costs
  22. net — for catching
  23. file — a document
  24. branch — a division

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