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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: cold · kid · bear · field · drill · net · wind · clip

  1. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  2. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  3. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  4. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  5. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  6. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  7. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  8. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  11. The soldiers did ________________ on the parade ground every morning.
  12. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. We had a fire ________________ at school today.
  15. I need a ________________ to install the towel rack.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  18. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  21. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  22. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  23. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  24. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. bear — the animal
  2. clip — for paper
  3. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  4. net — for catching
  5. bear — the animal
  6. field — a subject
  7. net — in sport
  8. net — after costs
  9. cold — an illness
  10. kid — child
  11. drill — army training
  12. bear — to put up with
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. drill — a practice
  15. drill — the tool
  16. cold — not warm
  17. wind — moving air
  18. field — farmland
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. kid — to tease
  21. clip — to cut
  22. wind — moving air
  23. field — for sport
  24. clip — a video

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