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

Word bank: tear · clip · prune · mate · stock · cold · hand · chair

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. Professor Sir Peter Hirsch formerly held the ________________.
  3. James Baker serves as an Honorary Co-________________ for the World Justice Project.
  4. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  5. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  6. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  7. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  8. Have you found your soul ________________?
  9. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  10. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  11. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  12. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  13. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  14. The ________________ market has crashed.
  15. I put the bag on or beside the ________________.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  18. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  19. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  20. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  21. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  22. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  23. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  24. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. chair — a professorship
  3. chair — a leader
  4. cold — an illness
  5. clip — a video
  6. prune — to trim
  7. stock — goods
  8. mate — a partner
  9. tear — from crying
  10. hand — in cards
  11. clip — for paper
  12. clip — to cut
  13. hand — part of the body
  14. stock — shares
  15. chair — to sit on
  16. tear — from crying
  17. hand — help
  18. mate — a friend
  19. prune — the fruit
  20. prune — to trim
  21. stock — a soup base
  22. cold — the Cold War
  23. mate — to breed
  24. tear — to rip

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