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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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468
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: clip · arm · field · chest · file · bound · bat · fine

  1. I assure you, everything's ________________.
  2. We are ________________ to obey laws.
  3. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  4. I'd give my right ________________ to be ambidextrous.
  5. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  6. My father caught me by the ________________.
  7. I got a ________________ for parking in the wrong place.
  8. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  9. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  10. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  11. She sat on the ________________ of the sofa.
  12. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  13. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  14. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  15. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  16. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  17. This shop sells ________________ wines and cheeses.
  18. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  19. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  20. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  21. That was ________________ to happen.
  22. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  23. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  24. He reached out and took down a small leather ________________ book.

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

Answer key

  1. fine — all right
  2. bound — obliged
  3. chest — of your body
  4. arm — part of the body
  5. bat — for baseball
  6. arm — part of the body
  7. fine — a penalty
  8. bat — in an idiom
  9. clip — for paper
  10. chest — of your body
  11. arm — a part of something
  12. field — farmland
  13. clip — a video
  14. file — a document
  15. file — a line of people
  16. field — a subject
  17. fine — high quality
  18. bat — the animal
  19. chest — a box
  20. file — a tool
  21. bound — certain
  22. clip — to cut
  23. field — for sport
  24. bound — tied together

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