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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. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  3. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  4. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  5. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  6. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  7. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  8. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  9. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  12. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  13. The King held a masked ________________.
  14. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  15. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  16. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  17. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  18. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  19. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  22. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  23. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. bat — in an idiom
  3. capital — a big letter
  4. field — a subject
  5. kid — child
  6. capital — money
  7. degree — temperature
  8. degree — an amount
  9. degree — from a university
  10. clip — a video
  11. bat — for baseball
  12. field — for sport
  13. ball — a dance
  14. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  15. capital — a city
  16. bat — the animal
  17. kid — to tease
  18. hand — part of the body
  19. hand — in cards
  20. field — farmland
  21. clip — to cut
  22. ball — a round shape
  23. ball — a great time
  24. clip — for paper

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