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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: bat · capital · fan · stock · court · clip · wax · pitch

  1. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  2. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  3. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  4. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  5. The ________________ market has crashed.
  6. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  7. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  8. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  9. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  10. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  11. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  12. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  13. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  16. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  17. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  18. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  19. The ball is in your ________________.
  20. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  21. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  22. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  23. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  24. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.

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

Answer key

  1. fan — a supporter
  2. capital — a city
  3. capital — a big letter
  4. pitch — a sales talk
  5. stock — shares
  6. clip — a video
  7. stock — a soup base
  8. clip — to cut
  9. stock — goods
  10. court — of law
  11. fan — a supporter
  12. bat — in an idiom
  13. wax — for sculpting
  14. bat — the animal
  15. wax — in the ear
  16. bat — for baseball
  17. capital — money
  18. court — of a king
  19. court — for sport
  20. pitch — a sports field
  21. wax — to grow
  22. fan — to cool the air
  23. clip — for paper
  24. pitch — completely

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