Chess Word Search

A chess puzzle of pieces, moves and checkmates that prints with its answer key.

Name Date

Chess Word Search

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

0 of 15 words found

PNAFNTJQPLSWEOQ

AALJPEZDAGHDMDR

HEHRSPVLETPINMA

VTBORASCRRANKLS

HXSOHADBREFCSKB

HWEKINGERMOHTNL

JRLBRCAPTURESIR

SUFILESCIRKCIGD

ILHSHLOVZDQKRHO

QADHYFCIBELSXTS

UIBOARDCASTLERC

EYEPAWNYHBDHLOM

ESCHECKMATETHGE

NUSTOAHSLLHYEYT

TEEURABQRJILTWL

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.

KingKING
QueenQUEEN
RookROOK
BishopBISHOP
KnightKNIGHT
PawnPAWN
BoardBOARD
RankRANK
FileFILE
CaptureCAPTURE
CastleCASTLE
In checkIN CHECK
CheckmateCHECKMATE
ForkFORK
PinPIN

15 of 20 words from the Chess list.

Explain three words from the list to someone who has never played chess.

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Easy: words go across and down.

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Word list

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

The puzzle changes as you go. See the puzzle

Answer key: Chess Word Search

PNAFNTJQPLSWEOQ

AALJPEZDAGHDMDR

HEHRSPVLETPINMA

VTBORASCRRANKLS

HXSOHADBREFCSKB

HWEKINGERMOHTNL

JRLBRCAPTURESIR

SUFILESCIRKCIGD

ILHSHLOVZDQKRHO

QADHYFCIBELSXTS

UIBOARDCASTLERC

EYEPAWNYHBDHLOM

ESCHECKMATETHGE

NUSTOAHSLLHYEYT

TEEURABQRJILTWL

KING, QUEEN, ROOK, BISHOP, KNIGHT, PAWN, BOARD, RANK, FILE, CAPTURE, CASTLE, IN CHECK, CHECKMATE, FORK, PIN

Next step Make a word search from your chess club's own words Make a chess word scramble

All 135 words

The Pieces 14

Bishop The piece that travels only on slants and so stays on one color all game.
Black The side with the dark-colored pieces, which goes second.
Horse The animal whose head and neck the knight is carved as.
King The piece a player must keep safe; it goes one step in any direction and is never taken.
Knight The only piece that leaps over others; its path makes the letter L.
Major The kind of piece a rook or a queen is, also called heavy.
Minor The kind of piece a bishop or a knight is.
Pawn The foot soldier, eight to a side; it goes straight ahead but takes on a slant.
Piece Any figure on the board; in strict use the word leaves out the pawns.
Queen The strongest piece: it runs any distance along a row, a column or a slant.
Rook The corner piece that runs in straight lines; rukh, the Persian word behind its name, means chariot.
Sixteen How many pieces each player has when a game begins.
Value What a piece is worth in points: one for a pawn, three for a knight or bishop, five for a rook.
White The side with the light-colored pieces, which always goes first.

Show all 135 words (121 more)

The Board 13

Board The checkered field of play, with 64 squares in all.
Center The board's four middle squares: d4, d5, e4 and e5.
Coordinates The letter and number that name one square, such as g7.
Corner Where each rook stands when a game begins.
Dark The color of half the board's squares.
Diagonal A slanting line of same-colored squares, the road a bishop travels.
File A column that runs from one player to the other; they are lettered a to h.
Flank The files on either side of the two middle ones; also called a wing.
Light The color of the square in each player's right-hand corner.
Rank A row that runs from side to side; they are numbered 1 to 8.
Rim The outer edge of the board.
Sixty-four How many squares the board has.
Square One of the 64 small spaces, each named by a letter and a number such as e4.

Moves and Rules 19

Attack To threaten to take a piece on the next turn.
Capture To take an enemy piece off the board by landing on its square.
Castle To shift the king two squares toward a rook and hop that rook over it, all in one turn.
Checkmate The end of the game: the king is under attack and has no way out.
Defend To guard a piece so that whatever takes it can be taken back.
Draw A game with no winner; each player scores half a point.
Fifty After this many moves by each side with no pawn move and nothing taken, a player can claim a draw.
Illegal Against the rules, like a move that leaves your own king under attack.
In check How a king stands when an enemy piece attacks it; the danger must be met at once.
Interpose To put a piece between an attacker and its target.
Jump What a knight alone may do over a piece in its way.
Laws What the official rules of the game are called.
Move One turn at the board; players take them one after the other.
Promote To swap a pawn that reaches the far row for a queen, rook, bishop or knight.
Resign To give up a lost game; the old way to show it is to tip your king over.
Stalemate A draw: no legal move is left for the side whose turn it is, though it is not under attack.
Threefold Said of the repetition rule: when the same position comes up a third time, a player can claim a draw.
Touch To handle a piece on purpose; by a strict rule that piece must then be moved if it can be.
Underpromotion Choosing a rook, bishop or knight for a pawn on the last row instead of a queen.

Tactics and Checkmates 20

Battery Pieces lined up to work together, such as two rooks on a file or a queen and a bishop on a diagonal.
Blunder A very bad move; in game notes it gets two question marks.
Combination A run of moves, some of them forced and often with a sacrifice, that gains an advantage.
Deflection Luring an enemy piece off a good square, often one from which it guards another.
Desperado A trapped piece that gives itself up for as much as it can get.
Double check An attack on the king by two pieces at once; only a king move can answer it.
Fool's mate The shortest game that can end in checkmate: Black wins on the second turn.
Fork One piece attacking two or more enemy pieces at once.
Overloaded Said of a piece that has too many guarding jobs at once.
Pin An attack on a piece that cannot step away without exposing a more valuable one behind it.
Sacrifice Giving up a piece or a pawn on purpose for something better, such as an attack.
Scholar's mate A four-move win, common among beginners, in which a queen backed by a bishop strikes next to the king.
Skewer An attack on a valuable piece that, once it steps aside, leaves a lesser one behind it to be taken.
Smothered mate A knight's winning blow against a king walled in by its own pieces.
Swindle A trick played from a worse position.
Tactics Short-term attacks, traps and threats, as against slow positional play.
Threat A move or plan that aims to harm the other player's position and must be answered.
Trap A move that may tempt the other player into a losing reply.
Windmill Checks and discovered checks in turn that pick off piece after piece; also called a seesaw.
X-ray The power of a piece to attack or guard through another piece standing in the way.

Opening to Endgame 25

Advantage A stronger position that gives real winning chances.
Blockade A piece placed right in front of an enemy pawn to stop it.
Chain Two or more pawns of one color linked on a slant.
Defense A move that meets an attack; many systems played by Black carry the word in their names.
Develop To bring a piece off its first square to one where it can do more.
Doubled Said of a pair of same-colored pawns standing on one file.
Endgame The third and last phase, with few pieces left on the board.
Engine A computer program that plays the game; the best are far stronger than any human.
Fortress A setup the stronger side cannot break into, which can save a draw.
Gambit A pawn given up early for space or time; the word comes from Italian for tripping someone up.
Hole A square in or near a player's ground that none of their pawns can control.
Initiative The power to make attacking moves that the other side has to answer.
Isolated Said of a pawn with no pawn of its own color on the files beside it.
Material All the pieces and pawns a player still has, taken together.
Middlegame The phase that follows the first one, once the pieces are out.
Opening The first phase of a game, when both sides bring out their pieces and usually castle.
Opposition Two kings standing in one line with a single empty square between them.
Outpost A square in or near enemy ground that one of your pawns guards, a fine home for a knight.
Simplification Swapping pieces off, for example to blunt an attack or to steer toward a draw.
Space The squares a player controls.
Strategy Weighing up a position and choosing long-range goals, as against short tricks.
Tablebase A computer database of positions with only a few pieces, with perfect play worked out for each.
Tempo One move counted as a unit of time; in Italian the word means time.
Triangulation A king's walk around a three-cornered path to come back with the other side to move.
Weakness A pawn or square open to attack and not easily guarded.

Clock, Club and Tournament 24

Algebraic The standard way to record moves, naming each square by its letter and number.
Arbiter The official who sees that the rules are obeyed at an event.
Blindfold A way of playing in which a player is not allowed to see the board.
Blitz A game in which each player gets ten minutes or less; the name is German for lightning.
Bullet The fastest kind of game, most often with one minute for each player.
Bye A round in which a player has no game, usually scored as a win.
Clock The double timer beside the board; pressing your button starts the other player's time.
Club A group that meets to play; many schools have one.
Flag To win on time; older clocks had a small one that fell when the time was up.
Forfeit To lose a game by breaking a rule, by not showing up or by running out of time.
Grandmaster The highest title a player can earn, apart from World Champion.
Increment Seconds added to a player's time with every move.
Match A series of games between the same two players, or a contest between two teams.
Notation Any method of writing a game down move by move.
Olympiad A team event for the nations of the world, held every two years.
Opponent The player on the other side of the board.
Point What a win earns in an event; a draw earns half of one.
Problem A composed position that sets the solver a task, such as White to force a win in two moves.
Rapid A game with more than ten minutes but less than an hour for each player.
Rating A number for a player's strength, worked out from results.
Round robin An event in which every player meets every other player.
Scoresheet The paper on which a player writes down the moves of a game.
Simul One player taking on many others at once, walking from board to board.
Tournament An event where many players meet over several rounds.

History and Borrowed Words 20

Caïssa The make-believe goddess of the game; her name comes from a poem of 1763.
Chariot The war cart that the rook stood for in the old game.
Chaturanga The old game of India that chess grew from; the name is Sanskrit for the four divisions of an army.
Chess The game itself; its name goes back through French to the Persian word for king.
Elephant The animal the bishop's place belonged to in the old game.
En passant A pawn's capture of an enemy pawn that has just run two squares to land beside it; the name is French.
En prise From French: said of a piece that stands where it can be taken.
Fianchetto From Italian for little flank: to bring a bishop out to the long diagonal on the knight's file.
Fingerfehler German for finger mistake: a slip made by handling the wrong piece without thinking.
India The country where the first known form of the game appeared, around the seventh century.
J'adoube French for I adjust: what a player says before straightening a piece on its square.
Kibitz From Yiddish: to watch a game and make comments the players can hear.
Luft German for air: an escape square made for a castled king by pushing a pawn.
Persia The land the game reached from India before it spread to the Arab world and Europe.
Shah Persian for king; the cry that announced a trapped king gave English the word checkmate.
Tabiya From Arabic: a well-known position after which the real game begins.
Vizier A ruler's chief adviser: what the queen was in the old game.
Zeitnot German for time need: having very little time left to finish a game.
Zugzwang German for compulsion to move: a spot where every legal move makes things worse.
Zwischenzug German for in-between move: a surprise played before the expected reply.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. Rules and terms were checked on 13 October 2026 against the FIDE Laws of Chess (https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012023) and the English Wikipedia Glossary of chess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_chess), and facts against these Wikipedia articles: Chess, Rules of chess, History of chess, Chaturanga, Shatranj, Checkmate, Castling, En passant, Rook (chess), Knight (chess), Bishop (chess), Queen (chess), Pawn (chess), Chess piece relative value, Fast chess, Chess clock, Grandmaster (chess), Chess Olympiad, Simultaneous exhibition, Double check, Tempo (chess), Gambit and Caïssa. Spellings and word origins were checked the same day in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (https://www.ahdictionary.com/) and in Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zugzwang and the entries for the other words). Licence: own work

How it works

King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight and Pawn are on the opening list of this chess word search, beside Castle, Fork, Pin and Checkmate. Seven themed lists run from the pieces to the words chess borrowed from French, German and Italian.

Read the full guide

Seven lists, from the pieces to borrowed words

The Pieces has Knight, Horse and Sixteen. The Board has Rank, File and Diagonal. Moves and Rules has Castle, Promote and Stalemate. Tactics and Checkmates has Fork, Skewer and Smothered mate. Opening to Endgame has Gambit, Tempo and Outpost. Clock, Club and Tournament has Blitz, Arbiter and Scoresheet, and History and Borrowed Words has Zugzwang, Fianchetto and Chaturanga.

Where the words come from

En passant is French for in passing, and j'adoube for I adjust. Zugzwang is German for compulsion to move. Rook goes back to rukh, Persian for chariot, and chaturanga, the old Indian game, is Sanskrit for the four divisions of an army. The rules in the clues follow the FIDE Laws of Chess.

Check alone is not hidden, because it would read inside Checkmate: the list has In check instead.
For a chess club, Tactics and Checkmates makes a puzzle of Fork, Pin, Skewer, Windmill and other tricks.

Questions and answers

Is the chess word search free to print?

Yes. It costs nothing and asks for no account. The print is two pages on Letter or A4: the puzzle, with a name and date line and three words to explain in writing, then the answer key.

What words are in the chess word search?

135 words and phrases, from Pin and Rook to Underpromotion and Simplification. Long and Tricky gathers every entry of nine letters or more.

Which list has the chess pieces?

The Pieces, with 14 entries: the six kinds of piece, White and Black, and words such as Minor, Major and Value. Chariot, Elephant and Vizier, what the rook, bishop and queen once were, are in History and Borrowed Words.

Where does the word checkmate come from?

From shah mat, a Persian phrase called out when a king was attacked and could not escape; shah is Persian for king.

Is there an easy chess word search for kids?

Short and Easy has 12 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as King, Queen, Rook, Pawn, Fork and Draw. The Board is a good next step, with Rank, File, Corner and Center.

All 135 words

The Pieces 14

The Board 13

Moves and Rules 19

Tactics and Checkmates 20

Opening to Endgame 25

Clock, Club and Tournament 24

History and Borrowed Words 20

How it works

Seven lists, from the pieces to borrowed words

Where the words come from

Questions and answers

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