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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 116 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: ground · straw · kid · cabinet · file · clip · field · present

  1. Did you get a birthday ________________ for him this year?
  2. In all probability, the ________________ will fall.
  3. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  4. What do you think of the new ________________?
  5. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  6. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  7. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  8. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  9. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  12. She took a metal box from the top of the kitchen ________________.
  13. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  14. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  15. Actually, the ________________ method has plenty of room for improvement.
  16. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  17. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  18. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  19. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  20. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  21. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  22. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  23. My partner was ________________ at the birth of our baby.
  24. There's no middle ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. present — a gift
  2. cabinet — ministers
  3. file — a line of people
  4. cabinet — ministers
  5. ground — the earth
  6. file — a tool
  7. straw — dry grass
  8. straw — to clutch at straws
  9. ground — crushed
  10. field — farmland
  11. straw — a straw man
  12. cabinet — a cupboard
  13. clip — for paper
  14. kid — child
  15. present — the time now
  16. clip — to cut
  17. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  18. kid — to tease
  19. field — a subject
  20. field — for sport
  21. clip — a video
  22. file — a document
  23. present — there
  24. ground — a position

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