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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: prune · clip · stem · cold · perch · tube · branch · pound

  1. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  2. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  5. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  6. I need a new inner ________________ for my bike tire.
  7. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  10. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  11. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  12. Biology is a ________________ of science.
  13. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.
  14. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  15. I'll be taking the ________________.
  16. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  17. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  18. He chopped down the ________________ with an ax.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  21. Our bank has a ________________ near the station.
  22. I want a large ________________ of toothpaste.
  23. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  24. A ________________ is just a dried plum.

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

Answer key

  1. prune — to trim
  2. prune — to trim
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. clip — to cut
  5. stem — to come from
  6. tube — in a tire
  7. pound — to hit hard
  8. cold — an illness
  9. pound — for dogs
  10. perch — the fish
  11. clip — a video
  12. branch — a division
  13. stem — a stem cell
  14. clip — for paper
  15. tube — the underground
  16. perch — for a bird
  17. perch — for a bird
  18. branch — of a tree
  19. cold — not warm
  20. stem — of a plant
  21. branch — of a bank
  22. tube — a container
  23. pound — a weight
  24. prune — the fruit

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