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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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Word bank
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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. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  3. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  4. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  5. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  6. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  7. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  8. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  11. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  14. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  15. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  16. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  17. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  18. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  19. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  20. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  21. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  22. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  23. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  24. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. chair — to sit on
  3. patient — a sick person
  4. patient — a sick person
  5. wind — moving air
  6. pitch — completely
  7. bat — for baseball
  8. patient — calm and waiting
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. straw — dry grass
  11. wind — moving air
  12. field — a subject
  13. straw — to clutch at straws
  14. straw — a straw man
  15. field — for sport
  16. wind — to turn a key
  17. bat — the animal
  18. pitch — a sports field
  19. content — the amount
  20. chair — a professorship
  21. pitch — a sales talk
  22. chair — a leader
  23. content — videos and posts
  24. field — farmland

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