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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. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  2. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  3. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  4. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  5. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  6. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  7. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  8. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  9. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  10. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  11. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  12. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  13. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  16. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  17. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  18. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  19. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  20. David sat on the ________________.
  21. That was a fun ________________.
  22. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  23. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  24. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.

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

Answer key

  1. game — wild animals
  2. swing — music
  3. net — after costs
  4. mine — an explosive
  5. snap — to click
  6. file — a line of people
  7. file — a document
  8. mine — for digging
  9. snap — to snap out of it
  10. face — to point toward
  11. field — a subject
  12. net — in sport
  13. net — for catching
  14. field — for sport
  15. snap — to speak sharply
  16. file — a tool
  17. face — to confront
  18. mine — belonging to me
  19. swing — in golf
  20. swing — to play on
  21. game — a match
  22. field — farmland
  23. face — part of the head
  24. game — a kind of play

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