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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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Word bank
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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: shower · ground · hand · prune · coach · cold · march · court

  1. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  2. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  3. There's no middle ________________.
  4. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  5. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  6. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  7. The ball is in your ________________.
  8. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  9. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  10. Is the royal ________________ prepared for the journey?
  11. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  12. Have you met the new head ________________?
  13. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  14. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  15. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  16. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  17. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  18. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  21. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  22. The ________________ told me I needed to practice harder.
  23. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  24. I got dealt a bad ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. march — the month
  2. shower — to wash
  3. ground — a position
  4. hand — part of the body
  5. hand — help
  6. cold — an illness
  7. court — for sport
  8. court — of a king
  9. prune — to trim
  10. coach — pulled by horses
  11. ground — the earth
  12. coach — a trainer
  13. ground — crushed
  14. prune — to trim
  15. shower — a meteor shower
  16. court — of law
  17. prune — the fruit
  18. march — the month
  19. cold — not warm
  20. march — music
  21. cold — the Cold War
  22. coach — a trainer
  23. shower — rain
  24. hand — in cards

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