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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. Why would I ________________ to a disabled ramp?
  2. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.
  5. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  6. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  7. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  8. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  9. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  10. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  11. I had a ________________ with my boss today.
  12. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. Thanks to his efforts, he attained his ________________.
  15. A valuable ________________ decreases in value if it is damaged.
  16. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  17. We had to ________________ the boat across the lake.
  18. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  19. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  20. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  21. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  22. The girl drawing a picture in the first ________________ is my niece.
  23. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  24. Hold the papers together with a ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. object — to protest
  2. cold — an illness
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. track — a song
  5. prune — to trim
  6. field — farmland
  7. prune — to trim
  8. field — for sport
  9. clip — a video
  10. clip — to cut
  11. row — a quarrel
  12. field — a subject
  13. cold — not warm
  14. object — an aim
  15. object — a thing
  16. track — a path
  17. row — to paddle
  18. track — to keep track
  19. prune — the fruit
  20. perch — the fish
  21. perch — for a bird
  22. row — a line
  23. perch — for a bird
  24. clip — for paper

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