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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: track · cold · degree · wound · chest · prune · rest · tear

  1. I would like to have a ________________ here.
  2. The lid of the ________________ creaked open.
  3. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  4. She laid her head on my ________________ so she could listen to my heartbeat.
  5. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  6. Because of the accident, he'll have a limp for the ________________ of his life.
  7. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  8. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  11. He keeps ________________ of his days.
  12. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  13. The muddy ________________ descends to a valley.
  14. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  15. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  16. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  17. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  18. This is my favorite ________________ on the album.
  19. The ________________ of the members were all out of tune.
  20. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  21. The water is too ________________.
  22. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  23. I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my ________________.
  24. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?

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

Answer key

  1. rest — a break
  2. chest — a box
  3. prune — the fruit
  4. chest — of your body
  5. degree — temperature
  6. rest — what's left
  7. wound — an injury
  8. tear — from crying
  9. cold — an illness
  10. tear — from crying
  11. track — to keep track
  12. prune — to trim
  13. track — a path
  14. tear — to rip
  15. wound — past of 'wind'
  16. wound — an injury
  17. prune — to trim
  18. track — a song
  19. rest — what's left
  20. cold — the Cold War
  21. cold — not warm
  22. degree — from a university
  23. chest — of your body
  24. degree — an amount

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