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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: cold · wake · deal · pitch · tear · branch · march · clip

  1. The water is too ________________.
  2. The players ran onto the football ________________.
  3. His birthday is in either ________________ or April.
  4. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  5. She's preparing to ________________ her idea to the investors.
  6. The band played a military ________________ at the parade.
  7. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  8. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  9. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  10. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  11. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  12. Part of that ________________ required him to leave the singing group.
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  15. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  16. Don't make such a big ________________ out of small things.
  17. We will have lived in Kyoto for eight years next ________________.
  18. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  19. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  20. The room was ________________ black, so I couldn't see a thing.
  21. We need to ________________ with this problem right now.
  22. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  23. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  24. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.

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

Answer key

  1. cold — not warm
  2. pitch — a sports field
  3. march — the month
  4. tear — from crying
  5. pitch — a sales talk
  6. march — music
  7. branch — of a bank
  8. clip — for paper
  9. tear — to rip
  10. wake — to stop sleeping
  11. wake — before a funeral
  12. deal — an agreement
  13. cold — an illness
  14. branch — a division
  15. clip — to cut
  16. deal — a big deal
  17. march — the month
  18. wake — a trail
  19. tear — from crying
  20. pitch — completely
  21. deal — to handle
  22. clip — a video
  23. branch — of a tree
  24. cold — the Cold War

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