Enlightenment Word Search

Find 12 Enlightenment words in one grid, from Reason and Rights to Salon and Encyclopedia, with an answer key.

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EPHILOSOPHECT

OJNMATOSRAROE

PITOLERANCENQ

RSSDZNALCVASU

OCAHNGWOAQSEA

GISOFWONKTONL

REIHLJSOESNTI

ENLIGHTENMENT

SCLIBERTYLIEY

SEDUEFIBQSYPG

KEDSUULEHFDBN

ENCYCLOPEDIAD

IBLCRIGHTSGOW

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EnlightenmentENLIGHTENMENT
ReasonREASON
LibertyLIBERTY
EqualityEQUALITY
ProgressPROGRESS
ToleranceTOLERANCE
RightsRIGHTS
ConsentCONSENT
PhilosophePHILOSOPHE
SalonSALON
EncyclopediaENCYCLOPEDIA
ScienceSCIENCE

12 words from the Enlightenment list.

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Answer key: Enlightenment Word Search

EPHILOSOPHECT

OJNMATOSRAROE

PITOLERANCENQ

RSSDZNALCVASU

OCAHNGWOAQSEA

GISOFWONKTONL

REIHLJSOESNTI

ENLIGHTENMENT

SCLIBERTYLIEY

SEDUEFIBQSYPG

KEDSUULEHFDBN

ENCYCLOPEDIAD

IBLCRIGHTSGOW

ENLIGHTENMENT, REASON, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, PROGRESS, TOLERANCE, RIGHTS, CONSENT, PHILOSOPHE, SALON, ENCYCLOPEDIA, SCIENCE

Next step Make a puzzle from your own unit's words Scramble these Enlightenment words

All 131 words

Ideas of the Enlightenment 29

Consent Agreement. Locke held that a government needs that of the people it governs.
Deism Belief in a creator known through reason and the natural world. Most philosophes held it.
Education Teaching and learning. Wollstonecraft answered writers who would deny women a full one.
Empiricism The view that knowledge comes mainly from experience and the senses.
Enlightenment The age of ideas that reached its peak in Europe in the 1700s. The French call it the Lights.
Equality The same standing for everyone. French revolutionaries set it beside liberty.
Free Speech The liberty to say and print what you think. Voltaire argued for it.
Freedom Not being under another's control. Voltaire defended it for religion as well as for words.
General Will Rousseau's term for what the people as a whole want.
Individual One single person. The age stressed the liberty of each.
Invisible Hand Adam Smith's image for the way free markets can lead self-interested people to serve the public.
Justice Fair treatment under law. Beccaria is called the father of the criminal kind.
Knowledge What is known. Diderot hoped his great work would pass a vast amount of it to later generations.

Show all 131 words (118 more)

Ideas of the Enlightenment, continued

Laissez-faire French for let do: an economy in which government leaves buying and selling alone.
Liberty Freedom from unjust control. The age prized it for each individual.
Natural Law Rules of right and wrong that hold everywhere, whatever a ruler's own decrees may say.
Optimism The belief that all is for the best, which Voltaire's Candide makes fun of.
Progress Change for the better. Thinkers trusted that new knowledge would improve human life.
Property What a person owns. Locke counted it among the natural rights, with life and liberty.
Rationalism The view that thinking, more than the senses, is where knowledge comes from.
Reason The power to think a question through. Another name for the period is the Age of it.
Rights What every person is owed. The age called the most basic ones natural.
Sapere Aude Latin for dare to know. Kant called it the motto of the age in 1784.
Secular Not tied to any church. Some thinkers of the age called for states of this kind.
Skepticism Doubting a claim until there is a well-founded reason to accept it.
Social Contract The idea that people agree to be governed in return for protection of their remaining freedoms.
Sovereignty The highest power in a state. Rousseau placed it in the people.
Tabula Rasa Latin for blank slate: Locke's picture of the mind at birth.
Tolerance Letting other people hold beliefs that differ from your own.

Enlightenment Thinkers 16

Adam Smith Scottish economist whose Wealth of Nations came out on March 9, 1776.
Beccaria Milan-born jurist whose treatise of 1764 condemned cruel punishments.
Descartes Author of 1637 who set out to doubt everything and concluded: I think, therefore I am.
Diderot French writer (1713 to 1784), chief editor of the Encyclopédie.
Franklin American who visited Europe repeatedly and brought its newest ideas back to Philadelphia.
Hobbes English author of Leviathan, where modern social contract theory begins.
Hume Scottish philosopher and historian, born in Edinburgh in 1711.
Jefferson American who worked ideals of the age into the Declaration of Independence.
Kant German philosopher, born in Königsberg in 1724, whose 1784 essay asked what enlightenment is.
Locke English thinker (1632 to 1704) who wrote that government is limited and rests on the people's agreement.
Montesquieu French jurist whose book of 1748 set out three powers of a state: executive, legislative, judicial.
Newton English scientist whose book of 1687 set out the laws of motion and of universal gravitation.
Philosophe French name for the public thinkers of the 1700s, who brought reason to many fields of learning.
Rousseau Geneva-born author of The Social Contract and Emile, both of 1762.
Voltaire Pen name of the French writer of Candide, a champion of freedom of speech and of religion.
Wollstonecraft English writer of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, published in 1792.

Salons, Cities and Societies 25

Academy A learned society. Scientific ones passed new findings around Europe.
Austria Land of Joseph II, whose rule is summed up as everything for the people, nothing by the people.
Birmingham English home of the Lunar Society, which met from 1765 to 1813.
Cafe The French word for a coffeehouse.
Club A group that meets to talk. Hume and Adam Smith helped form one in Edinburgh, the Select Society.
Coffeehouse A shop where people from many walks of life met, shared ideas and argued over a hot drink.
Edinburgh Scottish city whose clubs and university made it a center of the new thinking.
Europe The continent in whose western part the movement emerged in the late 1600s.
France Home of the philosophes. The share of its people who could read doubled in the 1700s.
Geneva City-state where Rousseau was born. It banned his book on education in 1762.
Hostess The woman who ran a salon and kept its conversation moving. The French word is salonnière.
Königsberg Prussian city where Kant was born in 1724.
Letters Mail, and also learning. The Republic of them was a community of thinkers joined by handwritten post.
Lisbon City struck by an earthquake in 1755, a disaster that Candide returns to often.
London English capital, seat of the Royal Society.
Lunar Society Dinner club of thinkers and factory owners named for the full moon it met by.
Netherlands By the 1720s its presses printed banned books and shipped them to France.
Paris French capital, home of the country's first renowned salon.
Philadelphia American city where Common Sense was published in January 1776.
Prussia Kingdom ruled from 1740 to 1786 by Frederick the Great, who invited Voltaire to live at his palace.
Royal Society Britain's academy of sciences, founded on November 28, 1660, and at work ever since.
Salon A gathering held by a host or hostess where philosophes met and discussed ideas.
Scotland It had five universities in the 1700s and an Enlightenment of its own.
University A school of higher learning. Leiden, Halle, Uppsala and Edinburgh had renowned ones.
Versailles The French king's palace. Nobles moving from it to Paris helped public debate grow.

Books and Documents 24

Anonymous With no author's name, as Two Treatises, The Spirit of Law and Common Sense first appeared.
Candide Voltaire's short novel of 1759 about a sheltered young man taught that all is for the best.
Censorship Official control over what may be printed. Voltaire wrote at constant risk from strict laws of this kind.
Common Sense A 47-page pamphlet of January 10, 1776, that argued for American independence.
Constitution A written plan of government. The one framed in the United States in 1787 drew on these ideals.
Critique A careful judging of something. Kant's of 1781 examined pure reason.
Declaration A formal public statement. France's assembly issued one on the rights of man in 1789.
Dictionary A book of words in order. The full title of Diderot's great work calls itself a systematic one.
Discourse A formal talk or piece of writing. Descartes published one on method in 1637.
Emile Rousseau's treatise on education, banned in Paris and Geneva and publicly burned in 1762.
Encyclopedia A work covering every branch of knowledge. Diderot's came out in France from 1751 to 1772.
Essay A short piece of writing that argues a point. Kant's of December 1784 answered a question.
Journal A magazine that comes out on a schedule. Kant's 1784 answer appeared in the Berlin Monthly.
Leviathan Hobbes's book of 1651, named after a sea serpent.
Novel A long made-up story in prose. Rousseau published a sentimental one, Julie, in 1761.
Opticks Newton's book on light and color, published in 1704.
Pamphlet A thin booklet. With books and journals, such print carried ideas to more and more readers.
Principia Short name of Newton's three-volume Latin work, first published in 1687.
Print To press inked type onto paper. Books, journals and pamphlets made that way spread the new ideas.
Satire Writing that mocks what is wrong with the world. Candide is one.
Spirit of Law Montesquieu's treatise of 1748 on political theory, put into English in 1750.
Two Treatises Locke's chief work on government, published without his name in 1689.
Vindication Key word in the title of Wollstonecraft's 1792 essay on the rights of woman.
Volume One book of a set. In 1759, after the seventh, France suspended Diderot's great work.

Science and Discovery 19

Balloon A bag of hot air that rises. Two brothers launched the first manned flight in one in 1783.
Calculus A branch of mathematics for which Newton shares credit with Leibniz.
Chemistry The science of substances and how they change. It matured as a discipline in this age.
Discovery Finding out something that nobody knew before.
Electricity A force of nature of which the age gained a new understanding, along with magnetism.
Evidence Facts that show whether a claim is true.
Experiment A test set up to find something out. Lavoisier's were put to use in Paris's first modern chemical plants.
Gravity The pull between masses, for which Newton gave one universal law.
Inquiry A search for answers. By its full title, Adam Smith's great book is one into the wealth of nations.
Mathematics The science of number and shape. The Principia's full title promises its principles.
Method An orderly way of working. Newton refined the scientific one.
Motion Movement. Newton's laws of it are set out in the Principia.
Nature The physical world, which the new science set out to explain.
Observation Watching closely and noting what happens.
Optics The science of light. Newton's findings in it fill a book of 1704.
Physics The science of matter and motion. Newton's book of 1687 gave it its first great unification.
Prism A piece of glass that separates white light into the colors of the spectrum.
Science The study of nature by observation and experiment.
Telescope A tool for seeing far. Newton built the first reflecting one.

Kings, Reform and Revolution 18

Absolutism Rule in which the monarch's power has no legal limit.
Citizen A member of a state. The French declaration of 1789 names the rights of man and of this.
Despot A ruler with unlimited power. Frederick II, Catherine II and Joseph II are called enlightened ones.
Divine Right The claim that a king's power to rule comes from God.
Executive Of carrying out laws: one of the three powers Montesquieu named.
Independence Self-rule. The American declaration of it carries Locke's theory of natural rights.
Judicial Of judging cases under the law: one of the three powers Montesquieu named.
Legislative Of making laws: one of the three powers Montesquieu named.
Liberalism A later movement that traces its heritage to this age. Locke is known as its father.
Monarchy Rule by a king or queen. The new ideas undermined its authority.
Nobility The titled families, whose privileges the French Revolution swept away.
Old Regime English for ancien régime: France's order of king, nobles and church before 1789.
Powers What Montesquieu said a government should keep separate.
Privilege A special right held by a few. Nobles feared the coffeehouse, where titles were set aside.
Reform Change meant to improve. Thinkers wanted rational principles applied to society and politics.
Republic A state with no monarch, governed in the name of its citizens.
Revolution The overthrow of a government. France's of 1789 is the traditional end date of the age.
Subject A person who lives under a monarch's rule.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 131 words and every meaning were written for this page. Dates, titles and names were checked on October 13, 2026 against the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Enlightenment (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/) and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment and the article on each thinker, book and society named. Licence: own work

How it works

This Enlightenment word search hides 12 words: Reason, Liberty, Equality, Progress, Tolerance, Rights, Consent, Philosophe, Salon, Encyclopedia, Science and Enlightenment itself. Six more lists cover the ideas, thinkers, meeting places, books, science and politics of the age.

Read the full guide

Six lists, from Reason to Revolution

Start from a list splits the 131 words: Ideas of the Enlightenment (29) has Social Contract, Tabula Rasa and Laissez-faire; Enlightenment Thinkers (16) runs from Locke to Wollstonecraft; Salons, Cities and Societies (25); Books and Documents (24) has Candide and Leviathan; Science and Discovery (19); Kings, Reform and Revolution (18) has Divine Right and Despot.

A one-line meaning for every word

"Rousseau's treatise on education, banned in Paris and Geneva and publicly burned in 1762." is Emile. "Latin for blank slate: Locke's picture of the mind at birth." is Tabula Rasa. Under More options, tick Show clues, not words, and the sheet becomes a review of the unit.

Easy Enlightenment keeps to 13 words of 4 or 5 letters, such as Kant, Hume, Salon, Essay and Prism.
The grid drops spaces, hyphens and accents, so look for SOCIALCONTRACT, LAISSEZFAIRE, ADAMSMITH and KONIGSBERG.

Questions and answers

What was the Enlightenment?

A period of new thinking that emerged in western Europe in the late 1600s and peaked in the 1700s. Its writers put reason, evidence and the scientific method first and argued for liberty, tolerance and natural rights. It is also called the Age of Reason.

When was the Enlightenment?

By the traditional dating it runs from 1715, when Louis XIV of France died, to 1789, when the French Revolution began. Others begin earlier, with Descartes in 1637 or Newton's Principia in 1687, and end as late as 1804.

Who were the main Enlightenment thinkers?

The Enlightenment Thinkers list names 15: Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, Hume, Adam Smith, Kant, Newton, Hobbes, Descartes, Beccaria, Wollstonecraft, Franklin and Jefferson.

What were the main ideas of the Enlightenment?

Reason before tradition, individual liberty, religious tolerance, progress, natural rights, and government that rests on the consent of the governed. For where those ideas went next, print the Constitution word search.

All 131 words

Ideas of the Enlightenment 29

Ideas of the Enlightenment, continued

Enlightenment Thinkers 16

Salons, Cities and Societies 25

Books and Documents 24

Science and Discovery 19

Kings, Reform and Revolution 18

How it works

Six lists, from Reason to Revolution

A one-line meaning for every word

Questions and answers

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