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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: wind · field · chest · spell · cold · kid · perch · arm

  1. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  2. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  3. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  4. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  5. He asked the witch to reverse the ________________.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. How do you ________________ your surname?
  8. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  9. My father caught me by the ________________.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. The water is too ________________.
  12. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  13. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  14. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  15. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  16. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  17. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  20. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  21. We've had a long dry ________________ this summer.
  22. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  23. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  24. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — the Cold War
  2. perch — the fish
  3. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  4. kid — to tease
  5. spell — magic
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. spell — letters
  8. field — a subject
  9. arm — part of the body
  10. field — farmland
  11. cold — not warm
  12. arm — part of the body
  13. chest — of your body
  14. perch — for a bird
  15. arm — a part of something
  16. kid — child
  17. cold — an illness
  18. wind — moving air
  19. chest — of your body
  20. wind — moving air
  21. spell — a short time
  22. perch — for a bird
  23. chest — a box
  24. field — for sport

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