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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: cold · field · shower · race · bat · prune · clip · patient

  1. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  2. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  3. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  4. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  5. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  6. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  7. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  10. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  11. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  12. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  13. Only by prohibiting all nuclear weapons, we can together stop the arms ________________.
  14. Atomic bombs are a danger to the human ________________.
  15. Winning one ________________ isn't the same as dominating a sport.
  16. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  17. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  18. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  19. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  20. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  21. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  22. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  23. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  24. The water is too ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. clip — a video
  2. prune — to trim
  3. bat — for baseball
  4. shower — rain
  5. shower — to wash
  6. patient — calm and waiting
  7. field — for sport
  8. cold — an illness
  9. prune — to trim
  10. prune — the fruit
  11. patient — a sick person
  12. clip — for paper
  13. race — the arms race
  14. race — humankind
  15. race — a contest
  16. clip — to cut
  17. field — a subject
  18. shower — a meteor shower
  19. field — farmland
  20. patient — a sick person
  21. bat — in an idiom
  22. bat — the animal
  23. cold — the Cold War
  24. cold — not warm

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