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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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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: chair · cold · date · wind · mine · ground · game · pitch

  1. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  2. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  3. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  4. There's no middle ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  7. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  8. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  9. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  10. That was a fun ________________.
  11. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  12. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  13. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  14. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  15. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  16. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  17. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  18. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  21. Have you settled on a ________________?
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. date — the fruit
  2. pitch — a sales talk
  3. chair — to sit on
  4. ground — a position
  5. cold — an illness
  6. game — wild animals
  7. game — a kind of play
  8. wind — moving air
  9. pitch — a sports field
  10. game — a match
  11. date — on the calendar
  12. ground — crushed
  13. mine — an explosive
  14. ground — the earth
  15. chair — a leader
  16. pitch — completely
  17. chair — a professorship
  18. mine — belonging to me
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. mine — for digging
  21. date — on the calendar
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. wind — moving air
  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