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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 · hide · board · perch · capital · cold · chest

  1. I'm currently on the ________________ of directors.
  2. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  3. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  4. ________________ games are popular in Germany.
  5. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  6. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  7. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  8. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  9. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  10. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  11. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  12. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. The captain is giving the order to ________________ the ship.
  15. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  16. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  17. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  18. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  19. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  20. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  23. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. board — a committee
  2. perch — for a bird
  3. capital — money
  4. board — a flat piece
  5. perch — the fish
  6. wind — moving air
  7. hide — animal skin
  8. chest — of your body
  9. wind — moving air
  10. hide — to keep secret
  11. perch — for a bird
  12. chest — of your body
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. board — to get on
  15. field — farmland
  16. chest — a box
  17. field — for sport
  18. wind — to turn a key
  19. hide — to keep secret
  20. cold — an illness
  21. field — a subject
  22. capital — a big letter
  23. capital — a city
  24. cold — not warm

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