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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: prune · mine · court · shower · field · kid · spring · fan

  1. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  2. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  3. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  4. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  5. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  6. We took cover from the thunder ________________.
  7. She's sitting on a gold ________________.
  8. I am not a ________________ of shrimp.
  9. He's taking a ________________ right now.
  10. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  11. Can you turn the ________________ on?
  12. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  13. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  14. The ball is in your ________________.
  15. I met an old friend of ________________ the other day.
  16. He was blown up by a land ________________.
  17. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  18. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  19. The dagger's metal was presumably from the same meteor ________________.
  20. Are you a huge ________________ of trains?
  21. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  22. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  23. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  24. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.

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

Answer key

  1. prune — to trim
  2. kid — to tease
  3. prune — to trim
  4. court — of law
  5. court — of a king
  6. shower — rain
  7. mine — for digging
  8. fan — a supporter
  9. shower — to wash
  10. field — farmland
  11. fan — to cool the air
  12. spring — the season
  13. spring — a coil
  14. court — for sport
  15. mine — belonging to me
  16. mine — an explosive
  17. kid — child
  18. field — a subject
  19. shower — a meteor shower
  20. fan — a supporter
  21. field — for sport
  22. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  23. prune — the fruit
  24. spring — of water

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