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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. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  3. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  4. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  5. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  6. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  7. That was a fun ________________.
  8. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  9. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  10. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  11. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  12. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  13. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  14. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  15. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  16. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  17. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  20. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  21. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. wound — past of 'wind'
  3. field — a subject
  4. band — a music group
  5. wound — an injury
  6. present — there
  7. game — a match
  8. bowl — a football final
  9. wound — an injury
  10. band — a rubber band
  11. bowl — to roll
  12. band — a ring
  13. present — a gift
  14. field — farmland
  15. game — wild animals
  16. game — a kind of play
  17. bowl — a dish
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. field — for sport
  20. present — the time now
  21. bat — in an idiom
  22. cold — an illness
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. bat — the animal

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