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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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Word bank
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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 · bear · band · field · key · wind · game · straw

  1. That was a fun ________________.
  2. Hard work is the ________________ to success.
  3. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  6. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  7. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  8. Are you the only one who has a ________________ to this door?
  9. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  10. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  11. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  12. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  13. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  14. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  15. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  18. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  19. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  22. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  23. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  24. This piece is in a major ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. game — a match
  2. key — the most important part
  3. game — a kind of play
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. band — a music group
  6. field — for sport
  7. band — a ring
  8. key — for a lock
  9. cold — the Cold War
  10. bear — the animal
  11. field — a subject
  12. straw — dry grass
  13. game — wild animals
  14. straw — a straw man
  15. bear — the animal
  16. cold — not warm
  17. bear — to put up with
  18. straw — to clutch at straws
  19. wind — moving air
  20. cold — an illness
  21. wind — moving air
  22. wind — to turn a key
  23. field — farmland
  24. key — in music

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