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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: wound · bear · row · bat · field · content · degree · file

  1. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  2. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  3. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  4. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  5. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  6. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  7. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  8. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  9. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  10. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  11. Many happy returns to all who ________________ the name of a flower!
  12. A black ________________ roamed the forest.
  13. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  16. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  17. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  19. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  22. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  23. The little girl was crying for the teddy ________________.
  24. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.

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

Answer key

  1. content — happy
  2. row — a quarrel
  3. degree — from a university
  4. file — a line of people
  5. file — a document
  6. field — a subject
  7. degree — an amount
  8. bat — in an idiom
  9. wound — an injury
  10. row — to paddle
  11. bear — to put up with
  12. bear — the animal
  13. bat — for baseball
  14. file — a tool
  15. content — the amount
  16. content — videos and posts
  17. row — a line
  18. degree — temperature
  19. bat — the animal
  20. field — farmland
  21. wound — past of 'wind'
  22. field — for sport
  23. bear — the animal
  24. wound — an injury

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