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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: field · leaves · press · capital · cold · chest · bass · kid

  1. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. The fisherman caught a huge ________________.
  3. The ________________ change colour in autumn.
  4. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  7. Manchester University ________________ is the university's academic publishing house.
  8. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  9. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  10. The function of the ________________ is to provide the common people with facts.
  11. The train ________________ at six o'clock.
  12. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  13. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  14. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  15. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  16. I play ________________ in a jazz band.
  17. He always ________________ the window open while he sleeps.
  18. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  19. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  20. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  21. Turn up the ________________ so we can feel the beat.
  22. Did you ________________ the button?
  23. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. bass — the fish
  3. leaves — of a tree
  4. capital — money
  5. cold — an illness
  6. chest — of your body
  7. press — a publisher
  8. chest — of your body
  9. field — for sport
  10. press — newspapers
  11. leaves — to go away
  12. kid — child
  13. field — farmland
  14. chest — a box
  15. cold — the Cold War
  16. bass — the instrument
  17. leaves — lets stay
  18. capital — a city
  19. capital — a big letter
  20. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  21. bass — low music
  22. press — to push
  23. field — a subject
  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