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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: kid · content · pitcher · cold · field · squash · swing · chair

  1. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  2. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  3. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  4. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  5. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  8. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  9. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  10. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  11. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  12. He is an ace ________________.
  13. David sat on the ________________.
  14. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  15. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. The ________________ will go to the well once too often.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  20. Fill up this ________________ with water.
  21. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  22. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  23. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  24. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.

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

Answer key

  1. kid — to tease
  2. field — farmland
  3. content — happy
  4. squash — the vegetable
  5. field — a subject
  6. cold — an illness
  7. swing — music
  8. field — for sport
  9. content — videos and posts
  10. content — the amount
  11. chair — a leader
  12. pitcher — in baseball
  13. swing — to play on
  14. kid — child
  15. chair — a professorship
  16. cold — not warm
  17. pitcher — a jug
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. squash — the sport
  20. pitcher — a jug
  21. chair — to sit on
  22. squash — to crush
  23. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  24. swing — in golf

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