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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: court · spring · patient · stem · prune · ground · content · hand

  1. Add some ________________ pepper to it.
  2. Check the label for the sugar ________________.
  3. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  4. Many English words ________________ from Latin.
  5. Buy me a box of chocolates and I'll be ________________.
  6. The hotel is built around a mineral ________________.
  7. When a clown is made king, the ________________ becomes a circus.
  8. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  9. The ball is in your ________________.
  10. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  11. The big green plant was starting to droop at the ________________.
  12. There's no middle ________________.
  13. The ________________ was covered with snow, as far as the eye could see.
  14. There's a broken ________________ in the bed.
  15. TikTok makes it very easy to create ________________.
  16. The farmer was ________________ with the unruly horse.
  17. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  18. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  19. The flowers bloom in the ________________.
  20. The ________________ was transferred to the cardiology ward.
  21. The ________________ found him guilty of stealing money.
  22. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  23. The nurse administered an injection to the ________________.
  24. Scientists study ________________ cells to repair damaged tissue.

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

Answer key

  1. ground — crushed
  2. content — the amount
  3. hand — in cards
  4. stem — to come from
  5. content — happy
  6. spring — of water
  7. court — of a king
  8. hand — help
  9. court — for sport
  10. prune — to trim
  11. stem — of a plant
  12. ground — a position
  13. ground — the earth
  14. spring — a coil
  15. content — videos and posts
  16. patient — calm and waiting
  17. hand — part of the body
  18. prune — the fruit
  19. spring — the season
  20. patient — a sick person
  21. court — of law
  22. prune — to trim
  23. patient — a sick person
  24. stem — a stem cell

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