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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: hand · roll · degree · mate · prune · net · court · clip

  1. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  2. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  3. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  4. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  5. The teacher called the ________________ to see who was absent.
  6. Males and females first ________________ when two years old.
  7. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  8. Excuse me, sorry ________________, you haven't got the time have you?
  9. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  10. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  11. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. The ball is in your ________________.
  14. We're on a ________________ here.
  15. Grandma has made a Swiss ________________.
  16. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  17. Have you found your soul ________________?
  18. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  19. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  20. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  21. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  22. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  23. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  24. He took the fish out of the ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. hand — help
  2. court — of law
  3. degree — an amount
  4. prune — the fruit
  5. roll — a list
  6. mate — to breed
  7. net — after costs
  8. mate — a friend
  9. court — of a king
  10. net — in sport
  11. degree — from a university
  12. clip — for paper
  13. court — for sport
  14. roll — on a roll
  15. roll — a cake
  16. prune — to trim
  17. mate — a partner
  18. degree — temperature
  19. clip — a video
  20. prune — to trim
  21. hand — part of the body
  22. hand — in cards
  23. clip — to cut
  24. net — for catching

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