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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 120 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: cold · net · wax · face · field · capital · content · stock

  1. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  2. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  3. She had a strange look on her ________________.
  4. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  5. The ________________ market has crashed.
  6. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  7. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  8. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  9. Sooner or later you'll have to ________________ the truth.
  10. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  11. What's the best way to remove ear ________________?
  12. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  13. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  14. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  15. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  16. The water is too ________________.
  17. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  18. The moon will ________________ and wane.
  19. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  20. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  21. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  22. The museum has ________________ figures of famous people.
  23. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  24. Our bedroom windows ________________ the sea.

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

Answer key

  1. field — for sport
  2. content — the amount
  3. face — part of the head
  4. net — for catching
  5. stock — shares
  6. cold — the Cold War
  7. net — in sport
  8. stock — goods
  9. face — to confront
  10. cold — an illness
  11. wax — in the ear
  12. capital — money
  13. capital — a big letter
  14. content — happy
  15. stock — a soup base
  16. cold — not warm
  17. capital — a city
  18. wax — to grow
  19. field — a subject
  20. field — farmland
  21. net — after costs
  22. wax — for sculpting
  23. content — videos and posts
  24. face — to point toward

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