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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: file · roll · capital · mine · chest · game · field · sharp

  1. It's one o'clock ________________.
  2. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  3. We're on a ________________ here.
  4. That was a fun ________________.
  5. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  6. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  7. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  8. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  9. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  10. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  11. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  12. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  13. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  14. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  15. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  16. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  17. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  18. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  19. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  24. She's sitting on a gold ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. sharp — exactly
  2. chest — of your body
  3. roll — on a roll
  4. game — a match
  5. file — a document
  6. game — wild animals
  7. mine — an explosive
  8. capital — a city
  9. roll — a list
  10. file — a tool
  11. game — a kind of play
  12. roll — a cake
  13. chest — a box
  14. capital — money
  15. sharp — clever
  16. mine — belonging to me
  17. field — a subject
  18. chest — of your body
  19. field — for sport
  20. field — farmland
  21. sharp — with an edge
  22. file — a line of people
  23. capital — a big letter
  24. mine — for digging

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