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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.

Words on the sheet
468
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: ball · wound · perch · cold · prune · kid · net · hand

  1. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  2. Don't ________________ yourself. You couldn't afford to buy a house like this.
  3. What was your ________________ profit last year?
  4. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  5. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  6. The water is too ________________.
  7. The ball hit the back of the ________________.
  8. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  9. We've got to handle this with ________________ gloves.
  10. I had chicken pox when I was a ________________.
  11. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  12. I was having a ________________ recording these guys.
  13. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  14. It's not a deep ________________. It's just a scratch.
  15. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  16. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  17. The King held a masked ________________.
  18. He took the fish out of the ________________.
  19. The kitten curled into a ________________.
  20. This looks like a gunshot ________________.
  21. We ________________ up on opposing sides.
  22. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  23. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  24. I got dealt a bad ________________.

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. net — after costs
  4. prune — to trim
  5. cold — the Cold War
  6. cold — not warm
  7. net — in sport
  8. perch — for a bird
  9. kid — young goat (kid gloves)
  10. kid — child
  11. cold — an illness
  12. ball — a great time
  13. prune — the fruit
  14. wound — an injury
  15. hand — part of the body
  16. perch — for a bird
  17. ball — a dance
  18. net — for catching
  19. ball — a round shape
  20. wound — an injury
  21. wound — past of 'wind'
  22. hand — help
  23. perch — the fish
  24. hand — in cards

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