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

Word bank: bark · degree · cold · swing · trunk · tear

  1. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  2. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  3. The elephant has a huge ________________.
  4. The tree's ________________ was scarred by lightning strikes.
  5. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  6. David sat on the ________________.
  7. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  8. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  9. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  10. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  11. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  12. I've got the luggage in my ________________.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  15. The water is too ________________.
  16. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  17. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. tear — from crying
  2. degree — an amount
  3. trunk — of an elephant
  4. trunk — of a tree
  5. tear — from crying
  6. swing — to play on
  7. swing — music
  8. bark — to shout
  9. degree — temperature
  10. bark — a dog's sound
  11. degree — from a university
  12. trunk — of a car
  13. cold — an illness
  14. bark — of a tree
  15. cold — not warm
  16. swing — in golf
  17. tear — to rip
  18. cold — the Cold War

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