Easter Word Search

About this puzzle

Easter brings two kinds of tradition together, and this list keeps both in view. On one side are Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and the Resurrection, the days at the center of the Christian calendar. On the other are the springtime customs most kids look forward to: the Bunny, the Egg Hunt, Jelly Beans, and a basket full of chocolate.

It fits nicely into a Sunday school class, a spring break afternoon, or the quiet stretch after the egg hunt when everyone is sugared up. We also slipped in a few words with surprising backstories. Did you know the White House has hosted an Easter Egg Roll since 1878, or that daffodils are called Lent lilies in Britain? The notes below each word fill in the details.

The 30 words in this puzzle

Every word, with a short note. Handy for teaching the vocabulary before or after solving.

In every version (12)

Basket

Easter baskets grew out of the earlier nests children built for the Easter hare. Today they usually hold candy, small toys, and decorated eggs.

Bunny

German immigrants in Pennsylvania brought the legend of the Osterhase, an egg-laying hare, to America in the 1700s. Children made nests for it to fill with colored eggs.

Carrot

Some families leave a carrot out for the Easter Bunny, the way others leave cookies for Santa. Real rabbits mostly eat hay, though, and get carrots only as a treat.

Chick

A chick hatching from its shell is an easy picture of new beginnings, which is why fuzzy yellow chicks show up on so many Easter cards and treats.

Chocolate

Chocolate Easter eggs were first made in Europe in the 1800s. The British company J. S. Fry and Sons sold one of the earliest in 1873.

Duckling

A baby duck. Many birds hatch in spring, which is why ducklings and chicks show up on Easter cards. Ducklings can walk and swim within hours of hatching.

Easter Egg

Eggs have long been a symbol of new life in spring. Christians came to link them with the empty tomb, and dyeing and decorating eggs is a tradition centuries old.

Egg Hunt

Eggs have long been a symbol of new life. Hiding them for children to find is a custom that came to the United States from German-speaking Europe.

Jelly Bean

Jelly beans became a common Easter candy in the 1930s, largely because their oval shape looks like tiny eggs.

Lamb

Christians call Jesus the Lamb of God, a title linked to the lambs sacrificed at Passover. Roast lamb is a traditional Easter dinner in many countries.

Spring

In Western churches, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21, so it always lands between March 22 and April 25.

Tulip

Tulips are among the first flowers to bloom each spring. They came to the Netherlands from the Ottoman Empire in the 1500s and became a Dutch national symbol.

Added in Medium and Hard (8)

Bonnet

Showing off new spring hats on Easter gave rise to the Easter Parade on New York's Fifth Avenue, made famous by Irving Berlin's 1933 song "Easter Parade."

Church

Easter is the most important holiday of the Christian year, and many families attend a special church service that morning. Some churches hold services outdoors at sunrise.

Daffodil

In Britain the daffodil is sometimes called the Lent lily because it often flowers during Lent. It is also the national flower of Wales.

Lily

The white Easter lily is native to islands in southern Japan. Most potted Easter lilies sold in the U.S. start as bulbs from a small coastal area on the California and Oregon border.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday, one week before Easter, recalls Jesus entering Jerusalem as crowds waved and laid down palm branches. Many churches hand out palm fronds that day.

Pastel

Pale colors like lavender, mint, and baby yellow echo spring blossoms, and they became the classic palette for Easter decorations and dyed eggs.

Robin

The American robin is one of the most familiar signs of spring. It lays eggs of a bright sky blue, a color so well known it is called robin's egg blue.

Sunrise

Many churches hold outdoor sunrise services on Easter morning. The custom is often traced to a Moravian congregation in Herrnhut, Germany, in 1732.

Added in Hard (10)

Egg Roll

The White House Easter Egg Roll began in 1878 under President Rutherford B. Hayes. Children push hard-boiled eggs across the South Lawn with long spoons.

Good Friday

Good Friday, two days before Easter, marks the crucifixion of Jesus. In many countries, including Britain and Australia, it is a public holiday.

Holy Week

The week leading up to Easter, starting on Palm Sunday. Christians use these days to remember the last week of Jesus's life before the Resurrection.

Hot Cross Bun

These spiced sweet buns, marked with a cross of icing or dough, are traditionally eaten on Good Friday in Britain, Ireland, Australia, and other countries.

Hyacinth

A spring bulb flower with tight clusters of small, sweet-smelling blooms in purple, pink, blue, or white. Potted hyacinths are a popular Easter gift.

Lent

Lent is the forty-day season of fasting and prayer before Easter, not counting Sundays, beginning on Ash Wednesday. Its name comes from an Old English word for spring.

Marshmallow

Marshmallow chicks and bunnies are a classic Easter candy. The first marshmallows were made from the root of the marsh mallow plant, which grows in wet meadows.

Pysanka

A Ukrainian Easter egg decorated with beeswax and dyes. The artist draws lines in wax, dips the egg in color after color, then melts the wax to reveal the design.

Resurrection

Christians celebrate Easter as the day Jesus rose from the dead, on the third day after his crucifixion. It is the oldest and most important feast of the Christian year.

Simnel Cake

A British Easter fruitcake layered and topped with marzipan. It is often decorated with 11 marzipan balls for the apostles, leaving out Judas.

A few facts to share while you solve

• The early English historian Bede wrote that the month around Easter was named for Eostre, a goddess honored by the Anglo-Saxons, which may be where the word Easter comes from.
• Ukrainian pysanky are eggs decorated by drawing lines in melted beeswax and dipping the egg in dyes, one color at a time, from lightest to darkest.
• The jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and his workshop made about 50 jeweled imperial Easter eggs for the Russian royal family between 1885 and 1916.

Four versions of this puzzle

Pick a version with the buttons above the grid. Each one has its own grid and answer key, and your progress on each is saved separately in this browser.

Hard and large print versions

Hard easter word search: all 30 words on a 17 × 17 grid, hidden forward, backward, up, down and along both diagonals, with filler letters borrowed from the word list. Print it without the word list for an extra challenge. Play the hard version, or see all hard word searches.

Large print easter word search: the 12 most familiar words on a 11 × 11 grid, printed with big letters and a big word list, and no backwards words. Play the large print version, or see all large print word searches.

Printing this word search

Press Print / PDF above the puzzle. You get a clean one-page sheet with the title, the grid, a word list with tick boxes, and optional name and date lines. The answer key prints on a second page. Prefer a file? Download it as a PDF or an image to print later or drop into a worksheet. Whatever version is showing on screen is the one that prints, and the large print version prints with bigger letters.

How to play online

1. Find a word from the list in the grid. Scanning for its first letter is the quickest way.
2. Drag across the word from its first letter to its last. On a phone, you can also tap the first letter, then the last.
3. Found words get highlighted and crossed off. Stuck? Hint circles the first letter of a word you haven’t found.

Read the full guide to solving word searches, with tips that make big grids much faster.