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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 owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  2. Have you found your soul ________________?
  3. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  4. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  5. The ________________ market has crashed.
  6. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  7. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  8. The ________________ of 'teacher' is 'teach'.
  9. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  12. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  13. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  14. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  15. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  16. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  17. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  18. We need to address the ________________ of the problem.
  19. The ________________ of a dandelion is edible, too.
  20. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  23. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  24. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.

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

Answer key

  1. perch — for a bird
  2. mate — a partner
  3. mate — to breed
  4. field — a subject
  5. stock — shares
  6. perch — for a bird
  7. stock — goods
  8. root — of a word
  9. perch — the fish
  10. cold — an illness
  11. tear — from crying
  12. mate — a friend
  13. field — farmland
  14. spring — of water
  15. tear — from crying
  16. stock — a soup base
  17. cold — the Cold War
  18. root — the cause
  19. root — of a plant
  20. field — for sport
  21. cold — not warm
  22. spring — a coil
  23. spring — the season
  24. tear — to rip

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