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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 120 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: court · cell · bark · club · hide · clip · cold · field

  1. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  2. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  3. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  4. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.
  5. She was laid on a cow-________________ and covered by a coarse woollen blanket.
  6. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. He was locked up in a ________________.
  9. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  10. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  11. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  12. The water is too ________________.
  13. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  14. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  15. The ball is in your ________________.
  16. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  19. Why are you trying to ________________ your feelings?
  20. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  21. We have nothing to ________________ here.
  22. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.

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

Answer key

  1. field — farmland
  2. court — of a king
  3. club — for dancing
  4. club — for golf
  5. hide — animal skin
  6. clip — a video
  7. clip — to cut
  8. cell — in a prison
  9. bark — a dog's sound
  10. club — a group
  11. cell — a phone
  12. cold — not warm
  13. field — for sport
  14. bark — of a tree
  15. court — for sport
  16. field — a subject
  17. clip — for paper
  18. court — of law
  19. hide — to keep secret
  20. bark — to shout
  21. hide — to keep secret
  22. cold — an illness
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. cell — in biology

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