Age of Exploration Word Search

Print an Age of Exploration word search of ships, tools, spices and ports, with its answer key.

Name Date

Find every word hidden in the grid. Words go across and down.

0 of 16 words found

ECALICUTCARAVEL

SASRTUTVSNHTMER

YKTTYRSRWAPGUHY

OTRRHLETOVCAKTI

GYOIGLHDSIELIAA

HOLONDNLWGXLVTW

DOALOCSSNAPEOYF

LDBOITNPITLOYEL

ABEXPEDITIONACE

TCHFBNPCRORSGAE

IPEPPEREMNERERT

TONOGAVTGPRISGB

UAHROUTETDAOSOT

DPJOCOLONYMSTXO

EANCHORNNTTRHRI

This grid is wider and taller than its box. Slide it to see every letter.To drag, hold the first letter for a moment, then slide.Keyboard: Tab to the grid, arrow keys to move, Enter on the first and last letter.

CaravelCARAVEL
GalleonGALLEON
AnchorANCHOR
CargoCARGO
FleetFLEET
AstrolabeASTROLABE
LatitudeLATITUDE
NavigationNAVIGATION
SpiceSPICE
PepperPEPPER
CalicutCALICUT
RouteROUTE
VoyageVOYAGE
ExplorerEXPLORER
ExpeditionEXPEDITION
ColonyCOLONY

16 of 21 words from the Age of Exploration list.

Start from a list

Easy: words go across and down.

More options

Show clues, not words

Word list

Large print Lower-case letters Name and date line on paper

The puzzle changes as you go. See the puzzle

Answer key: Age of Exploration Word Search

ECALICUTCARAVEL

SASRTUTVSNHTMER

YKTTYRSRWAPGUHY

OTRRHLETOVCAKTI

GYOIGLHDSIELIAA

HOLONDNLWGXLVTW

DOALOCSSNAPEOYF

LDBOITNPITLOYEL

ABEXPEDITIONACE

TCHFBNPCRORSGAE

IPEPPEREMNERERT

TONOGAVTGPRISGB

UAHROUTETDAOSOT

DPJOCOLONYMSTXO

EANCHORNNTTRHRI

CARAVEL, GALLEON, ANCHOR, CARGO, FLEET, ASTROLABE, LATITUDE, NAVIGATION, SPICE, PEPPER, CALICUT, ROUTE, VOYAGE, EXPLORER, EXPEDITION, COLONY

Next step Make a puzzle from your own exploration words Scramble these ship and spice words

All 127 words

Ships and Sailing 26

Anchor A heavy hook dropped to the seabed to hold a ship in place.
Ballast Heavy stones in the bottom of a hull that keep a ship upright.
Bow The pointed front of a ship.
Caravel Small, light Portuguese ship whose triangular sails let it work against the wind.
Cargo The goods in a ship's hold.
Carrack Big ship of three or four masts that carried cargo on long ocean crossings.
Crew Everyone who works aboard.
Crow's Nest A lookout perch high on the mast.
Deck The floor of a ship.
Fleet Several ships that sail together under one commander.
Galleon Large armed sailing ship. Spanish ones carried silver across two oceans.
Hammock A hanging bed of cloth or net. The word comes from the Taino of the Caribbean.
Hardtack Dry, hard biscuit that kept for months at sea.
Helm The place a ship is steered from.
Hull The body of a ship.
Keel The backbone along the bottom of a hull.
Lateen A three-cornered sail hung from a long slanting pole.
Mast The tall upright pole that carries a ship's sails.
Mutiny A crew's revolt against its captain.
Rigging The ropes that hold up the masts and work the sails.
Rudder The flat blade at the back that steers.
Scurvy Sickness of long sea crossings, caused by too little vitamin C.
Shipwreck A ship lost on rocks or in a storm.
Starboard The right side of a ship as you face forward.
Stern The rear of a ship.
Tiller The lever that turns the rudder.

Show all 127 words (101 more)

Navigation Tools 23

Astrolabe Metal ring or disc for measuring how high the sun or a star stands, and so how far north a ship is.
Cartographer A person who makes maps.
Chart A map made for sailors, showing coasts, depths and dangers.
Compass A magnetized needle that points north.
Cross-staff A stick with a sliding crosspiece, held to the eye to measure the height of the sun.
Current A stream of moving water within the sea.
Dead Reckoning Working out where you are from speed, time and direction alone.
Fathom A sailor's measure of depth: six feet.
Globe A map on a ball. The oldest one that survives was made in Germany between 1490 and 1492.
Horizon Where sea and sky seem to meet.
Hourglass Sand timer, often a half-hour one, turned again and again to keep time at sea.
Knot A ship's speed, once counted on a marked rope let out behind it.
Latitude Distance north or south of the equator, which sailors could find from the sun or the North Star.
Logbook The daily written record of a ship's speed, course and events.
Longitude Distance east or west, which sailors of the time could only estimate.
Monsoon Seasonal wind of the Indian Ocean that sailors timed their crossings by.
Navigation The skill of finding a ship's way across open water.
Polaris The North Star, which stays almost still above the pole.
Portolan A sea chart crisscrossed with compass lines, drawn from sailors' own notes of coasts and harbors.
Quadrant Quarter-circle tool with a hanging weight, for measuring the height of a star.
Sounding Measuring the depth of the water with a weighted line.
Telescope Tube of lenses for seeing far; the first known ones appeared in the Netherlands in 1608.
Trade Winds Steady winds near the equator that carry ships west across the ocean.

Spices and Trade Goods 24

Barter To swap goods for goods, with no money.
Brazilwood Tree with a red dye in its heart, which gave a South American country its name.
Bullion Gold or silver in bars.
Cacao Bean of a tree of the Americas, the source of chocolate.
Calico Cotton cloth named after a port on the southwest coast of India.
Cinnamon Sweet brown bark of a tree native to Sri Lanka.
Cloves Dried flower buds of a tree native to the Maluku Islands of Indonesia.
Exchange The Columbian one was the passing of plants, animals and diseases between two halves of the world after 1492.
Ginger Hot-tasting root carried west from Asia.
Horses Animals that Spanish ships carried to the Americas.
Ivory Elephant tusk, traded along the African coast.
Maize Another name for corn, a crop of the Americas that spread around the world.
Merchant A person who buys and sells goods for a living.
Monopoly Sole control of a trade, with no rival allowed.
Nutmeg Seed of a tree native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia.
Pepper Dried berries of a vine from India, one of the most traded seasonings in the world.
Porcelain Fine white pottery from China.
Potato Root crop of the Andes that crossed to Europe after 1492.
Silk Fine cloth from China, spun by caterpillars.
Silver Metal mined at Potosi in the Andes and shipped to Spain and to Asia.
Spice Dried seed, bark or root that flavors food, worth a fortune in Europe in the 1400s.
Sugar Sweet crop that Portugal planted on Madeira and later in Brazil.
Trading Post A small station on a far coast where ships stop to buy and sell.
Vanilla Flavor from the pod of an orchid native to Mexico.

Ports, Capes and Routes 27

Azores Islands in the middle of the Atlantic, a stop for ships sailing home to Portugal.
Brazil Land on the coast of South America that a Portuguese fleet reached in 1500.
Calicut Port on the southwest coast of India that a Portuguese fleet reached in 1498.
Canaries Spanish islands off Africa where ships stopped before crossing the Atlantic.
Cape Horn Stormy tip of South America, first rounded in 1616.
Cathay Old European name for China.
Ceuta North African port that Portugal captured in 1415.
Goa Indian port that Portugal took in 1510 and made its base in Asia.
Good Hope The cape near the tip of Africa that European ships first reached in 1488.
Guinea Old name for the coast of West Africa, where Portuguese ships traded for gold.
Harbor Sheltered water where ships can lie safely.
Hispaniola Caribbean island where Spain founded Santo Domingo in 1496.
Indies Name Europeans gave to the lands of South and Southeast Asia, and later to the Caribbean.
Lisbon Capital of Portugal, the port its fleets left for India from.
Macau Port on the south coast of China where Portugal was allowed a trading base from 1557.
Madeira Atlantic island group that Portuguese sailors claimed in 1419.
Malacca Port on the strait between the Indian Ocean and the China seas, taken by Portugal in 1511.
Manila Philippine port that gave its name to the treasure ships sailing to Mexico between 1565 and 1815.
Moluccas Islands of eastern Indonesia that Europeans called the Spice Islands.
Newfoundland Large island off Canada with rich cod banks that drew fishing fleets from Europe.
Pacific Ocean given its name, meaning peaceful, by the first fleet to sail around the world.
Passage The Northwest one was a hoped-for sea way to Asia around the top of North America.
Route The way a ship takes from one port to another.
Seville Spanish river port where the House of Trade ran the traffic with the Americas from 1503.
Silk Road The old overland ways between China and the Mediterranean.
Strait A narrow water passage between two lands.
Tordesillas Spanish town where Spain and Portugal agreed in 1494 to divide the newly reached lands.

Voyages and Empires 27

Charter Royal paper that gives a company the right to trade or settle.
Circumnavigate To sail all the way around the world. One ship of a Spanish fleet first did it between 1519 and 1522.
Claim To declare that a land belongs to your king or queen.
Colony Land settled and ruled by a faraway country.
Conquest Taking a land by force.
Conquistador Spanish word for the soldiers who took the Aztec and Inca lands.
Discovery Finding what was unknown to you. The period is also called the Age of this.
East India Two words in the name of the Dutch trading company of 1602 that grew rich on spice.
Encounter A first meeting between peoples who did not know of each other.
Expedition A journey made by a group for a set purpose.
Explorer Someone who travels to learn about lands unknown at home.
Indigenous Describes the peoples already living in a land when ships arrive.
Landfall The first sight or touch of land after a sea crossing.
Missionary A person sent to spread a religion.
Monarch A king or queen. Many paid for ships in the hope of gold and spice.
Navigator The person who works out a ship's position and course.
New World The Americas, as Europeans called them.
Old World Europe, Asia and Africa, as Europeans called them after 1492.
Patron Someone who pays for another person's work or journey.
Portugal Kingdom whose ships were the first from Europe to work down the African coast.
Rivalry A contest between kingdoms racing for the same prize.
Settlement A new village in a far land.
Slave Trade The forced shipping of captive Africans across the Atlantic, which Portuguese ships began in the 1500s.
Smallpox Disease carried across the ocean on ships, deadly to peoples of the Americas who had never met it.
Spain Kingdom that paid for the Atlantic crossing of 1492.
Viceroy An official who ruled a colony in the monarch's place.
Voyage A long trip across the sea, often lasting months.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 127 words and every clue were written for this page. Dates and places in the clues were checked on October 9, 2026 against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), starting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery and the article on each ship, tool, port or treaty named in a clue. Licence: own work

How it works

This Age of Exploration word search opens on 16 of 21 favorites, among them Caravel, Galleon, Astrolabe, Spice, Route, Voyage and Colony. Five lists hold the ships, tools, goods and ports of the 1400s to the 1600s.

Read the full guide

Ships, tools, spices and ports

Ships and Sailing has 26 words, from Caravel and Carrack to Rigging and Hardtack. Navigation Tools (23) runs from Astrolabe and Quadrant to Dead Reckoning. Spices and Trade Goods (24) has Pepper, Cloves and Nutmeg; Ports, Capes and Routes (27) has Ceuta, Calicut and Malacca; Voyages and Empires (27) has Conquistador, Viceroy and Circumnavigate.

Add your own explorers

No list names a person, so the sheet fits whichever voyages your textbook follows. Type Columbus, Magellan or da Gama on the last line of the list and the grid takes each one in. On a review day, tick Show clues, not words, under More options: "North African port that Portugal captured in 1415." leads to Ceuta.

Easy Age of Exploration keeps to 25 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Mast, Keel, Hull and Spice.
The grid drops spaces, hyphens and apostrophes, so look for CROWSNEST, CROSSSTAFF and GOODHOPE.

Questions and answers

What years does the Age of Exploration cover?

Roughly the 1400s to the 1600s; the period is also called the Age of Discovery. Among the clues, Portugal captured Ceuta in 1415 and Cape Horn was first rounded in 1616. Each date was read in English Wikipedia on October 9, 2026.

What was the Columbian Exchange?

The passing of plants, animals and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492. Potato, Maize and Cacao went east; Horses, Sugar and Smallpox went west. All six are words in the lists.

What tools did explorers use to navigate?

A Compass for direction; an Astrolabe, Quadrant or Cross-staff for the height of the sun or a star, which gives latitude; an Hourglass and a Logbook for dead reckoning. Longitude could only be estimated. For the colonies that followed, print the 13 colonies word search.

What was the Treaty of Tordesillas?

An agreement of 1494 in which Spain and Portugal divided the newly reached lands outside Europe, along a north to south line west of the Cape Verde islands. Tordesillas, the Spanish town where it was signed, is a word in Ports, Capes and Routes.

All 127 words

Ships and Sailing 26

Navigation Tools 23

Spices and Trade Goods 24

Ports, Capes and Routes 27

Voyages and Empires 27

How it works

Ships, tools, spices and ports

Add your own explorers

Questions and answers

More tools