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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. That was ________________ to happen.
  3. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  4. The water is too ________________.
  5. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  6. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  7. We wanted to take a walk to ________________ the time.
  8. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  9. You can't go backstage without a ________________.
  10. When are we going to ________________?
  11. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.
  12. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  15. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  16. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  17. The ________________ market has crashed.
  18. The ball is in your ________________.
  19. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  20. No doubt you will be able to ________________ the examination.
  21. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. land — ground
  2. bound — certain
  3. bound — obliged
  4. cold — not warm
  5. field — for sport
  6. file — a tool
  7. pass — to spend time
  8. court — of law
  9. pass — a permit
  10. land — to come down
  11. bound — tied together
  12. stock — goods
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. field — a subject
  15. land — a country
  16. cold — an illness
  17. stock — shares
  18. court — for sport
  19. file — a line of people
  20. pass — to succeed
  21. court — of a king
  22. file — a document
  23. stock — a soup base
  24. field — farmland

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