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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: bass · wound · tear · land · arm · cold · field · swing

  1. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  2. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  3. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  4. My father caught me by the ________________.
  5. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  6. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  7. I'm the one who owns all this ________________.
  8. David sat on the ________________.
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  11. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  14. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  15. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  16. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  17. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  18. When are we going to ________________?
  19. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  20. The water is too ________________.
  21. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  22. Algeria is a ________________ of gas and oil.
  23. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. field — for sport
  2. wound — past of 'wind'
  3. arm — a part of something
  4. arm — part of the body
  5. bass — low music
  6. swing — in golf
  7. land — ground
  8. swing — to play on
  9. tear — from crying
  10. tear — from crying
  11. swing — music
  12. field — a subject
  13. wound — an injury
  14. arm — part of the body
  15. wound — an injury
  16. tear — to rip
  17. bass — the instrument
  18. land — to come down
  19. cold — the Cold War
  20. cold — not warm
  21. field — farmland
  22. land — a country
  23. bass — the fish
  24. cold — an illness

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