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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: trunk · cold · wind · ground · root · rest · field · bark

  1. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  2. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  3. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  6. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  7. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  8. The ________________ of a dandelion is edible, too.
  9. The ________________ of 'teacher' is 'teach'.
  10. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  11. There's no middle ________________.
  12. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  13. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  14. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  17. We need to address the ________________ of the problem.
  18. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  19. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  20. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  24. I would like to have a ________________ here.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — an illness
  2. ground — crushed
  3. wind — moving air
  4. field — farmland
  5. field — for sport
  6. rest — what's left
  7. trunk — of a tree
  8. root — of a plant
  9. root — of a word
  10. trunk — of a car
  11. ground — a position
  12. trunk — of an elephant
  13. bark — to shout
  14. bark — of a tree
  15. cold — not warm
  16. bark — a dog's sound
  17. root — the cause
  18. wind — moving air
  19. ground — the earth
  20. rest — what's left
  21. field — a subject
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. wind — to turn a key
  24. rest — a break

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