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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: wake · clip · bark · lash · prune · cold · field · content

  1. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  2. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  3. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  6. Birch trees have smooth white ________________.
  7. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  8. The sergeant loved to ________________ orders at us.
  9. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  10. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  11. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  12. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  13. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  14. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  15. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  16. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  17. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  18. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  19. The water is too ________________.
  20. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  21. Our dog starts to ________________ whenever the doorbell rings.
  22. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  23. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  24. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.

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

Answer key

  1. lash — a whip stroke
  2. wake — before a funeral
  3. clip — to cut
  4. field — farmland
  5. prune — the fruit
  6. bark — of a tree
  7. lash — an eyelash
  8. bark — to shout
  9. content — videos and posts
  10. field — a subject
  11. content — the amount
  12. wake — a trail
  13. content — happy
  14. field — for sport
  15. prune — to trim
  16. clip — for paper
  17. clip — a video
  18. cold — the Cold War
  19. cold — not warm
  20. lash — to lash out
  21. bark — a dog's sound
  22. wake — to stop sleeping
  23. prune — to trim
  24. cold — an illness

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