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

  1. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  2. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  3. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  4. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  7. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  8. The water is too ________________.
  9. The ________________ market has crashed.
  10. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  13. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  14. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  15. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  16. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  17. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  18. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  19. There's no middle ________________.
  20. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  21. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  22. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  23. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  24. Add some ________________ pepper to it.

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

Answer key

  1. prune — to trim
  2. file — a line of people
  3. content — videos and posts
  4. file — a tool
  5. cold — an illness
  6. prune — to trim
  7. prune — the fruit
  8. cold — not warm
  9. stock — shares
  10. ground — the earth
  11. clip — a video
  12. stock — goods
  13. spring — of water
  14. cold — the Cold War
  15. spring — the season
  16. content — happy
  17. clip — for paper
  18. file — a document
  19. ground — a position
  20. spring — a coil
  21. clip — to cut
  22. stock — a soup base
  23. content — the amount
  24. ground — crushed

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