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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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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  2. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  3. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  4. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  5. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  9. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  10. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  11. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  12. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  13. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  18. Biology is a ________________ of science.

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

Answer key

  1. kick — a thrill
  2. prune — to trim
  3. branch — of a tree
  4. file — a document
  5. file — a line of people
  6. cold — not warm
  7. cold — an illness
  8. tear — from crying
  9. prune — the fruit
  10. tear — to rip
  11. prune — to trim
  12. branch — of a bank
  13. kick — with a leg
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. file — a tool
  16. tear — from crying
  17. kick — in football
  18. branch — a division

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