ClueBy
TodayArchiveWord list

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.

Make a worksheet

Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

Words on the sheet
468
Word bank
YesNo
↻ New worksheet

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: wound · chair · straw · field · cell · cold · content · charge

  1. Where can I ________________ my mobile?
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. Jason, who was in ________________ of the project, was dismissed for corruption.
  4. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  5. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  6. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  7. The tickets are free of ________________.
  8. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  9. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  10. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  11. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  12. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  13. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  14. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  15. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  16. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  17. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  18. He was locked up in a ________________.
  19. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. Each ________________ is a complete and highly sophisticated living world in its own right.
  22. The water is too ________________.
  23. Oh no! I wasn't paying attention and left my ________________ phone in the restaurant!
  24. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. charge — electricity
  2. cold — an illness
  3. charge — in control
  4. chair — a leader
  5. chair — to sit on
  6. straw — to clutch at straws
  7. charge — a price
  8. field — for sport
  9. straw — a straw man
  10. wound — an injury
  11. content — happy
  12. field — farmland
  13. wound — an injury
  14. content — videos and posts
  15. chair — a professorship
  16. wound — past of 'wind'
  17. field — a subject
  18. cell — in a prison
  19. content — the amount
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. cell — in biology
  22. cold — not warm
  23. cell — a phone
  24. straw — dry grass

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

Make a worksheet (0 words)

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