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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 · hand · tear · cold · clip · lash · pass · squash

  1. No doubt you will be able to ________________ the examination.
  2. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  3. Don't ________________ out at me just because you're upset.
  4. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  5. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  6. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  7. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  8. You can't go backstage without a ________________.
  9. The spa offers ________________ extensions.
  10. Cut the butternut ________________ into one-inch cubes.
  11. Drying a ________________ is more honorable than shedding torrents of blood.
  12. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  13. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  14. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  15. I'd like to play a game of ________________.
  16. I cannot shed a ________________ for that horrible man.
  17. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  18. The president vowed to ________________ the mutiny.
  19. We wanted to take a walk to ________________ the time.
  20. He felt the sting of the whip's ________________.
  21. It is only in accepting others that we can ________________ down our own barriers.
  22. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  23. The water is too ________________.
  24. A ________________ is just a dried plum.

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

Answer key

  1. pass — to succeed
  2. clip — for paper
  3. lash — to lash out
  4. hand — help
  5. hand — part of the body
  6. clip — to cut
  7. cold — the Cold War
  8. pass — a permit
  9. lash — an eyelash
  10. squash — the vegetable
  11. tear — from crying
  12. clip — a video
  13. cold — an illness
  14. prune — to trim
  15. squash — the sport
  16. tear — from crying
  17. hand — in cards
  18. squash — to crush
  19. pass — to spend time
  20. lash — a whip stroke
  21. tear — to rip
  22. prune — to trim
  23. cold — not warm
  24. prune — the fruit

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