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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. He hit the ball with his ________________.
  2. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  3. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  4. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  5. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  6. Hard work is the ________________ to success.
  7. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  8. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  11. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  12. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. That was a fun ________________.
  16. This piece is in a major ________________.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. Our cat is sitting in the apple tree, and the birds are making a ________________.
  19. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. I haven't touched a tennis ________________ in years.
  22. Are you the only one who has a ________________ to this door?
  23. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  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. racket — for tennis
  2. clip — to cut
  3. net — for catching
  4. stem — to come from
  5. net — after costs
  6. key — the most important part
  7. field — farmland
  8. net — in sport
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. game — a kind of play
  11. stem — of a plant
  12. game — wild animals
  13. cold — an illness
  14. clip — for paper
  15. game — a match
  16. key — in music
  17. clip — a video
  18. racket — a loud noise
  19. stem — a stem cell
  20. cold — not warm
  21. racket — for tennis
  22. key — for a lock
  23. field — for sport
  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