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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 120 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. The water is too ________________.
  2. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  3. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  4. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  5. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  6. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  9. We need to address the ________________ of the problem.
  10. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  11. The ________________ of a dandelion is edible, too.
  12. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  13. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  14. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  15. Wood does not conduct electric ________________.
  16. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. Here is a list of ________________ job openings.
  19. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  20. The ________________ of 'teacher' is 'teach'.
  21. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  22. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. Let us try to swim against the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. field — a subject
  3. field — for sport
  4. fan — a supporter
  5. fan — a supporter
  6. field — farmland
  7. clip — to cut
  8. bat — in an idiom
  9. root — the cause
  10. bat — the animal
  11. root — of a plant
  12. cold — the Cold War
  13. branch — of a tree
  14. fan — to cool the air
  15. current — electric
  16. branch — a division
  17. clip — a video
  18. current — happening now
  19. branch — of a bank
  20. root — of a word
  21. bat — for baseball
  22. clip — for paper
  23. cold — an illness
  24. current — of water

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