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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. The giraffe protected her ________________ with great courage.
  2. The giraffe did all she could to defend her ________________.
  3. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  4. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  5. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  6. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  7. He had ________________ pain while walking.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  12. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  13. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  14. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. There's no middle ________________.
  18. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  19. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  20. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  21. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. calf — a young animal
  2. calf — a young animal
  3. bark — a dog's sound
  4. perch — the fish
  5. bark — to shout
  6. field — a subject
  7. calf — of the leg
  8. clip — for paper
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. field — farmland
  11. capital — a big letter
  12. ground — the earth
  13. clip — to cut
  14. perch — for a bird
  15. cold — an illness
  16. field — for sport
  17. ground — a position
  18. perch — for a bird
  19. ground — crushed
  20. capital — money
  21. bark — of a tree
  22. clip — a video
  23. capital — a city
  24. cold — not warm

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