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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: wave · pitch · field · cold · bat · saw · date · perch

  1. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  2. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  3. The water is too ________________.
  4. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  5. Have you settled on a ________________?
  6. We ________________ that the plan would end in failure.
  7. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  8. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  9. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  10. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  11. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  12. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  13. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  14. The surfers were looking for the perfect ________________.
  15. He works in a ________________ mill.
  16. I am seized by an uncontrollable ________________ of sadness.
  17. She's very handy with a ________________.
  18. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  19. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  20. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. A lot of friends came to ________________ goodbye to me.
  23. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

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

Answer key

  1. field — a subject
  2. bat — the animal
  3. cold — not warm
  4. pitch — a sales talk
  5. date — on the calendar
  6. saw — past of 'see'
  7. field — farmland
  8. perch — for a bird
  9. bat — in an idiom
  10. field — for sport
  11. pitch — completely
  12. date — on the calendar
  13. pitch — a sports field
  14. wave — of the sea
  15. saw — the tool
  16. wave — a sudden rise
  17. saw — the tool
  18. perch — the fish
  19. date — the fruit
  20. perch — for a bird
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. wave — with your hand
  23. cold — an illness
  24. bat — for baseball

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