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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: club · field · scale · straw · game · mine · clip · last

  1. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  6. I belonged to the harmonica ________________ in my high school days.
  7. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  8. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  9. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  10. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  11. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  12. Later, his shop becomes a ________________ with young dancers.
  13. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  14. The kitchen ________________ is next to the microwave.
  15. Nobody expected a disaster on this ________________.
  16. False peace will not ________________.
  17. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  18. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  19. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  20. Every pianist practices the C major ________________.
  21. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  22. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  23. That was a fun ________________.
  24. My rich neighbors belong to a private golf ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — for paper
  2. clip — a video
  3. last — final
  4. field — farmland
  5. game — wild animals
  6. club — a group
  7. clip — to cut
  8. game — a kind of play
  9. mine — an explosive
  10. field — a subject
  11. straw — to clutch at straws
  12. club — for dancing
  13. mine — for digging
  14. scale — for weighing
  15. scale — size or range
  16. last — to go on
  17. straw — a straw man
  18. mine — belonging to me
  19. straw — dry grass
  20. scale — in music
  21. last — finally
  22. field — for sport
  23. game — a match
  24. club — for 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