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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. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  2. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  3. The train ________________ at six o'clock.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  6. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. Millions watch the Super ________________ every February.
  9. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  10. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  11. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  12. He always ________________ the window open while he sleeps.
  13. The ________________ change colour in autumn.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  16. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  17. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  18. Place the flour, butter and salt into a large clean ________________.
  19. He was locked up in a ________________.
  20. It's your turn to ________________ the ball down the lane.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  23. When are we going to ________________?
  24. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. march — music
  3. leaves — to go away
  4. cold — not warm
  5. cell — a phone
  6. field — for sport
  7. cold — an illness
  8. bowl — a football final
  9. march — the month
  10. march — the month
  11. clip — to cut
  12. leaves — lets stay
  13. leaves — of a tree
  14. clip — for paper
  15. cell — in biology
  16. clip — a video
  17. land — a country
  18. bowl — a dish
  19. cell — in a prison
  20. bowl — to roll
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. field — farmland
  23. land — to come down
  24. field — a subject

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