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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 · pound · prune · wound · band · kick · wind · file

  1. Jeff had to ________________ the pavement for three months before he found a job.
  2. I get a ________________ out of her cheerful personality.
  3. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  4. He put a rubber ________________ around the bundle of letters.
  5. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  6. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  7. They were given a penalty ________________ just minutes from the end.
  8. One ________________ from a giraffe's hind leg is enough to kill a lion.
  9. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  10. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  11. Rodrigo's family went to the dog ________________ to adopt a dog.
  12. A ________________ is equal to sixteen ounces.
  13. The water is too ________________.
  14. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  15. He's the lead singer in a rock ________________.
  16. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  17. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  18. He still wears his gold wedding ________________.
  19. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  20. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  21. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  22. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  23. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  24. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. pound — to hit hard
  2. kick — a thrill
  3. cold — the Cold War
  4. band — a rubber band
  5. prune — to trim
  6. wind — to turn a key
  7. kick — in football
  8. kick — with a leg
  9. cold — an illness
  10. wound — past of 'wind'
  11. pound — for dogs
  12. pound — a weight
  13. cold — not warm
  14. file — a tool
  15. band — a music group
  16. wind — moving air
  17. wound — an injury
  18. band — a ring
  19. wind — moving air
  20. prune — to trim
  21. wound — an injury
  22. prune — the fruit
  23. file — a document
  24. file — a line of people

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