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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. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  2. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  3. A ________________ is a sweet brown fruit from a palm tree.
  4. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  5. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  6. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  7. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  8. Why do cosmetics have an expiration ________________?
  9. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  10. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  11. Have you settled on a ________________?
  12. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  13. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  14. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  15. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  16. This knife is not ________________ enough.
  17. It's one o'clock ________________.
  18. He's quite ________________, isn't he?
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  21. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  22. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  23. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  24. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.

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

Answer key

  1. tear — from crying
  2. kid — child
  3. date — the fruit
  4. stem — of a plant
  5. cold — an illness
  6. stem — to come from
  7. wound — an injury
  8. date — on the calendar
  9. wound — past of 'wind'
  10. cold — the Cold War
  11. date — on the calendar
  12. wound — an injury
  13. tear — from crying
  14. kid — to tease
  15. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  16. sharp — with an edge
  17. sharp — exactly
  18. sharp — clever
  19. cold — not warm
  20. stem — a stem cell
  21. perch — for a bird
  22. tear — to rip
  23. perch — for a bird
  24. perch — the fish

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