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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. There's no middle ________________.
  2. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  3. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  4. We're on a ________________ here.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  7. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  8. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  9. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  10. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  11. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  12. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  13. The ________________ took off on time.
  14. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  15. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  16. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  17. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  18. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  19. In geometry, a flat surface is called a ________________.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. The carpenter used a ________________ to smooth the door.
  22. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. ground — a position
  2. bowl — a dish
  3. file — a tool
  4. roll — on a roll
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. roll — a list
  7. field — for sport
  8. bowl — to roll
  9. file — a line of people
  10. field — a subject
  11. clip — to cut
  12. file — a document
  13. plane — an aircraft
  14. clip — a video
  15. bowl — a football final
  16. clip — for paper
  17. field — farmland
  18. ground — the earth
  19. plane — in geometry
  20. cold — not warm
  21. plane — a tool
  22. ground — crushed
  23. cold — an illness
  24. roll — a cake

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