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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. That was a fun ________________.
  2. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  3. There's no middle ________________.
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  8. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  9. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  10. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  11. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  12. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  15. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  16. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  17. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  20. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  23. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  24. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.

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

Answer key

  1. game — a match
  2. hand — in cards
  3. ground — a position
  4. game — wild animals
  5. game — a kind of play
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. field — farmland
  8. bass — the fish
  9. ground — the earth
  10. perch — the fish
  11. hand — part of the body
  12. wind — to turn a key
  13. cold — an illness
  14. perch — for a bird
  15. field — for sport
  16. perch — for a bird
  17. field — a subject
  18. wind — moving air
  19. bass — low music
  20. ground — crushed
  21. cold — not warm
  22. hand — help
  23. bass — the instrument
  24. wind — moving air

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