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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 116 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 had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  3. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  4. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. David sat on the ________________.
  7. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  8. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  9. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  10. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  11. He who climbs up, will ________________ down.
  12. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  13. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  14. Did you ________________ the button?
  15. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  16. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  17. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  18. The water is too ________________.
  19. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  20. My stomach aches so much that I can't ________________ asleep.
  21. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  22. In the ________________, covers are put over the fans in trains.
  23. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  24. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. field — a subject
  3. field — for sport
  4. bat — in an idiom
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. swing — to play on
  7. bat — for baseball
  8. bat — the animal
  9. spring — the season
  10. press — a publisher
  11. fall — to drop
  12. swing — music
  13. swing — in golf
  14. press — to push
  15. press — newspapers
  16. wax — for sculpting
  17. field — farmland
  18. cold — not warm
  19. wax — to grow
  20. fall — to drop
  21. wax — in the ear
  22. fall — the season
  23. spring — of water
  24. spring — a coil

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