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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: kid · cold · hand · wound · mate · branch · capital · perch

  1. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  2. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  3. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  4. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  5. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  6. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  7. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  8. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  9. The beginning of a sentence starts with a ________________ letter.
  10. The water is too ________________.
  11. A second agreement was made due to the large amount of available ________________.
  12. Have you found your soul ________________?
  13. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  14. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  15. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  16. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  17. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. Beijing is the ________________ of China.
  20. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  21. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  22. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  23. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  24. This looks like a gunshot ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. perch — for a bird
  2. kid — to tease
  3. wound — an injury
  4. kid — child
  5. perch — for a bird
  6. branch — a division
  7. branch — of a tree
  8. perch — the fish
  9. capital — a big letter
  10. cold — not warm
  11. capital — money
  12. mate — a partner
  13. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  14. hand — help
  15. cold — an illness
  16. branch — of a bank
  17. hand — part of the body
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. capital — a city
  20. mate — to breed
  21. mate — a friend
  22. hand — in cards
  23. wound — past of 'wind'
  24. wound — an injury

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