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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 · bat · wind · prune · file · game · perch

  1. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  2. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  3. ________________ is common in the lakes of Sweden.
  4. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  5. That was a fun ________________.
  6. It was raining hard, and to make things worse, the ________________ was beginning to rise.
  7. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  8. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  9. Roulette is a ________________ of chance.
  10. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  11. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  12. He rubbed the rust off with a ________________.
  13. The pointer is employed to find upland ________________.
  14. The birds use the scarecrow as a ________________.
  15. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  16. The strong ________________ blew his hat off.
  17. We walked down the narrow path in single ________________.
  18. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  19. He sold his goods at a loss to ________________ up his business.
  20. The information is stored in a ________________ on my computer.
  21. The owl hooted softly from its ________________.
  22. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  23. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  24. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?

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

Answer key

  1. prune — to trim
  2. bat — for baseball
  3. perch — the fish
  4. clip — for paper
  5. game — a match
  6. wind — moving air
  7. prune — to trim
  8. wake — a trail
  9. game — a kind of play
  10. wake — to stop sleeping
  11. bat — the animal
  12. file — a tool
  13. game — wild animals
  14. perch — for a bird
  15. bat — in an idiom
  16. wind — moving air
  17. file — a line of people
  18. clip — to cut
  19. wind — to turn a key
  20. file — a document
  21. perch — for a bird
  22. wake — before a funeral
  23. prune — the fruit
  24. clip — a video

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