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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. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.
  2. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  3. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  4. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  5. We usually eat with a knife, ________________ and spoon.
  6. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  7. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  8. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  11. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  12. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  13. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  14. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  15. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  16. We came to a ________________ in the road and had no idea which direction to go.
  17. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  18. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  19. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  20. Have you settled on a ________________?
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. Use a garden ________________ to turn the soil.

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

Answer key

  1. face — to point toward
  2. straw — to clutch at straws
  3. bat — the animal
  4. spring — the season
  5. fork — to eat with
  6. field — a subject
  7. field — farmland
  8. field — for sport
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. date — on the calendar
  11. face — to confront
  12. straw — a straw man
  13. date — the fruit
  14. straw — dry grass
  15. spring — of water
  16. fork — in a road
  17. bat — for baseball
  18. face — part of the head
  19. spring — a coil
  20. date — on the calendar
  21. cold — not warm
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. cold — an illness
  24. fork — a garden tool

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