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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 · game · chest · net · cold · date · race · field

  1. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  2. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  3. Have you settled on a ________________?
  4. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  5. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  6. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  7. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  8. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  9. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  13. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  16. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  17. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  18. That was a fun ________________.
  19. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  20. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  21. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  22. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  23. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. chest — of your body
  2. file — a tool
  3. date — on the calendar
  4. game — wild animals
  5. field — farmland
  6. race — a contest
  7. date — on the calendar
  8. race — the arms race
  9. net — after costs
  10. cold — an illness
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. game — a kind of play
  13. file — a document
  14. field — for sport
  15. race — humankind
  16. date — the fruit
  17. chest — of your body
  18. game — a match
  19. chest — a box
  20. field — a subject
  21. net — in sport
  22. file — a line of people
  23. net — for catching
  24. cold — not warm

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