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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. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  2. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  3. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  4. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  5. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  6. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  7. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  8. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  9. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  10. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  11. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  12. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  13. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  14. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  15. When are we going to ________________?
  16. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  17. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  18. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  19. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  20. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  21. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  22. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  23. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  24. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. face — part of the head
  2. field — for sport
  3. band — a music group
  4. mine — belonging to me
  5. capital — money
  6. band — a rubber band
  7. face — to confront
  8. capital — a big letter
  9. face — to point toward
  10. file — a tool
  11. land — ground
  12. capital — a city
  13. land — a country
  14. mine — an explosive
  15. land — to come down
  16. file — a document
  17. mine — for digging
  18. file — a line of people
  19. kid — to tease
  20. kid — child
  21. field — farmland
  22. field — a subject
  23. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  24. band — a ring

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