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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: net · cold · snap · temple · straw · tear · kid · bark

  1. Your daily life is your ________________ and your religion.
  2. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  3. When was this ________________ built?
  4. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  5. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  6. When I ________________ my fingers, you'll wake up.
  7. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  8. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  9. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  10. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  11. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  12. It always has to be a ________________ man with them.
  13. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  14. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  15. The goat rested comfortably on a soft bed of ________________.
  16. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  17. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  18. ________________ out of it! You haven't done a thing all week.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. You don't have to ________________ at me like that.
  21. A trickle of blood ran from her ________________ down her cheek.
  22. A drowning man will clutch at a ________________.
  23. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  24. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.

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

Answer key

  1. temple — a place of worship
  2. bark — to shout
  3. temple — a place of worship
  4. bark — of a tree
  5. net — in sport
  6. snap — to click
  7. cold — an illness
  8. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  9. tear — to rip
  10. kid — to tease
  11. net — for catching
  12. straw — a straw man
  13. cold — the Cold War
  14. tear — from crying
  15. straw — dry grass
  16. kid — child
  17. net — after costs
  18. snap — to snap out of it
  19. cold — not warm
  20. snap — to speak sharply
  21. temple — side of the head
  22. straw — to clutch at straws
  23. bark — a dog's sound
  24. tear — from crying

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