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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 from the word bank in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

Word bank: chair · mine · field · race · content · kick

  1. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  2. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  3. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  4. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  5. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  6. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  7. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  8. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  9. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  10. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  11. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  12. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  13. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  14. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  15. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  16. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  17. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  18. She's sitting on a gold ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. field — farmland
  2. kick — with a leg
  3. race — a contest
  4. content — happy
  5. race — the arms race
  6. content — videos and posts
  7. race — humankind
  8. kick — in football
  9. chair — a professorship
  10. mine — an explosive
  11. chair — a leader
  12. chair — to sit on
  13. mine — belonging to me
  14. kick — a thrill
  15. field — a subject
  16. field — for sport
  17. content — the amount
  18. mine — for digging

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