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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 116 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: prune · swing · bay · band · bat · last · cold · content

  1. My mare is ________________ in color.
  2. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  3. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  4. Close the lid of the trash can to keep odors and pests at ________________.
  5. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  6. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. The water is too ________________.
  10. The coach helped Matthew straighten out his golf ________________, improving his game.
  11. At ________________, we arrived at the village.
  12. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  13. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  14. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  15. The sailing ship dropped anchor in the ________________.
  16. Today is the ________________ day of the holidays. Back to school tomorrow!
  17. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  18. False peace will not ________________.
  19. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  20. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  21. David sat on the ________________.
  22. In jazz, ________________ was gradually being replaced by bebop.
  23. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  24. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.

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

Answer key

  1. bay — a horse colour
  2. content — the amount
  3. prune — to trim
  4. bay — to keep at bay
  5. band — a music group
  6. band — a ring
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. cold — an illness
  9. cold — not warm
  10. swing — in golf
  11. last — finally
  12. bat — for baseball
  13. content — videos and posts
  14. content — happy
  15. bay — a part of the sea
  16. last — final
  17. prune — to trim
  18. last — to go on
  19. bat — in an idiom
  20. prune — the fruit
  21. swing — to play on
  22. swing — music
  23. band — a rubber band
  24. bat — the animal

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