Medium word search
The middle rung of the ladder: a 12x12 grid, thirteen everyday words, and all eight directions in play. Harder than the easy puzzle, gentler than the genuinely hard one.
Curated by 
Esme Rook
·
Updated August 2026
Play it right here
Drag across the letters to select a word. Words hide across, down and diagonally, forwards and backwards. Works with mouse and touch.
What makes this a medium word search?
Mechanics, not a label. It is a 12x12 grid with thirteen everyday words of six to eight letters, and every one of the eight directions is used, so words hide diagonally and backwards. That sits it squarely between the easy word search (10x10, across and down only) and the hard word search (15x15, eighteen long words).
What words are hidden in it?
Thirteen: planet, garden, bridge, castle, market, winter, island, pencil, jacket, rocket, silver, jungle and camera. None is longer than seven letters, so there is no single giant anchor to start from; the trick is to sweep for a rare letter like the V of SILVER or the J that starts both JACKET and JUNGLE, rather than reading whole words.
Who is it for, and can I print it?
A comfortable challenge from about age 8, and a quick coffee break for an adult. Both PDFs are free with no sign up, one for the puzzle and one for the solution, so the grid can go out while the answers stay with you. It prints clean in black and white.
Seven medium word searches to print, one for each way a word is built
The board on this page is the general one. Six more print from here, and not one of them changes the difficulty: every sheet is a 12x12 grid with all eight directions live, exactly like the board above. What each one changes is how the words themselves are put together. A word made of two words, twelve words grown from a single Latin root, twelve that end the same way, twelve carrying a letter you write and never say, the same letters shuffled into different words, and the plurals that flatly refuse to add an S. No word appears on two of them.
The 12x12 board on this page
The playable board above, printed exactly as it stands: thirteen everyday nouns of six and seven letters using all eight directions, with no giant anchor word to start you off.
Compound words, two words in one
Twelve entries that are two words stuck together, so each one hides a second find inside itself: the rain and the coat, the light and the house, the honey and the comb, the day and the dream.
One root, twelve words: PORT
Every entry is built on the Latin root that means to carry, which is the trap: those same four letters sit in the grid twelve times over, so most of your near misses are the other eleven words.
Twelve words ending in TION
The same four letters close every word, which reverses the usual hunt: instead of chasing a rare letter you chase a very common tail and then read backwards from it to find the start.
Silent letters, the ones you never say
Twelve words carrying a letter that is written and never pronounced, which is what makes them hard to spell and easy to find: the W of wrist, the B of thumb, the K of knuckle, the N of column.
Anagrams, the same letters reshuffled
Fourteen words in five anagram families, so the letters you have just found are the letters you need again from scratch: listen, silent and enlist share all six and share nothing else.
Irregular plurals, the ones that refuse an S
Twelve plurals that break the rule and are printed as plurals only: children, mice, geese, teeth, oxen, cacti and fungi, plus the five that swap an F for a V on the way, from wolves to halves.
