Force and Motion Word Search Puzzle, From Friction to Newton's Laws

Warm up for the ramp and toy car lab: 16 force and motion terms, a new grid every press.

Name Date

Force and Motion Word Search

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

0 of 16 words found

AYPMHKAWOHETEAO

PULLPRRISTSLKLN

EREACTIONNQGTEZ

WXVLSHEROHDIIEL

WHEELRDXIIWFAVO

CZRLRUFSONMASST

YAHRDSHPAEODMRJ

EMNXITEUERMROSI

ISFORCESNTEITMR

ERHWEIGHTINRIEZ

LEACCELERATIONN

ROBETRBDEUULNRH

YEFRICTIONMDUID

KVELOCITYEYGEAL

EHGCNNEBTJOTAIA

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.

ForceFORCE
PushPUSH
PullPULL
FrictionFRICTION
WeightWEIGHT
ThrustTHRUST
MotionMOTION
VelocityVELOCITY
AccelerationACCELERATION
DirectionDIRECTION
InertiaINERTIA
MassMASS
MomentumMOMENTUM
ReactionREACTION
LeverLEVER
WheelWHEEL

16 of 24 words from the Force and Motion Key Terms list.

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Word list

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

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Answer key: Force and Motion Word Search

AYPMHKAWOHETEAO

PULLPRRISTSLKLN

EREACTIONNQGTEZ

WXVLSHEROHDIIEL

WHEELRDXIIWFAVO

CZRLRUFSONMASST

YAHRDSHPAEODMRJ

EMNXITEUERMROSI

ISFORCESNTEITMR

ERHWEIGHTINRIEZ

LEACCELERATIONN

ROBETRBDEUULNRH

YEFRICTIONMDUID

KVELOCITYEYGEAL

EHGCNNEBTJOTAIA

FORCE, PUSH, PULL, FRICTION, WEIGHT, THRUST, MOTION, VELOCITY, ACCELERATION, DIRECTION, INERTIA, MASS, MOMENTUM, REACTION, LEVER, WHEEL

Next step Play simple machines bingo Build a puzzle from your own force and motion notes

All 130 words

Pushes, Pulls and Friction 28

Air resistance Drag from the atmosphere. It slows a falling sheet of paper far more than a falling coin.
Ball bearing A ring of small steel spheres that lets a wheel turn with very little friction.
Buoyancy The upward push of a liquid on anything in it, equal to the weight of the liquid pushed aside.
Contact The word for a push or pull that works only by touching, like a kick or a shove.
Drag The push of air or water against anything that moves through it.
Force A push or a pull. It can start, stop, speed up, slow down or turn an object.
Friction The rubbing that slows a sliding object and turns some of its motion into heat.
Gravity The pull between any two objects that have mass. Earth's keeps your feet on the ground.
Grip A firm hold. Rough soles and deep tire treads give more of it.
Lift The upward push on a wing as air flows past it. It holds an airplane up.
Lubricant Oil or grease put between moving parts to cut down friction and heat.
Magnetism The force that swings a compass needle north. It works across a gap, without touching.

Show all 130 words (118 more)

Pushes, Pulls and Friction, continued

Parachute A wide canopy that makes a lot of drag, so a fall slows to a safe speed.
Pressure How much push lands on each bit of area. A pin has a lot of it at its sharp tip.
Pull To tug on something so that it moves toward you.
Push To press on something so that it moves away from you.
Rolling The kind of friction on a wheel or a ball. It is much smaller than the rubbing kind.
Sliding The kind of friction between two surfaces that rub past each other.
Spring A coil of metal that pushes or pulls back when you squash it or draw it out.
Static The kind of friction that holds a still object in place until the push gets big enough.
Streamlined Shaped smooth and narrow so that air or water slips past with little drag.
Stretch To pull on something so that it gets longer.
Tension The pull that runs along a rope, string or cable when it is stretched tight.
Thrust The forward push made by a jet, a rocket or a propeller throwing gas or air backward.
Traction The hold between a tire or shoe and the ground that lets it push off without slipping.
Tug of war A rope contest between two teams. It was an Olympic event from 1900 to 1920.
Unbalanced The word for pushes and pulls that do not cancel out, so the object's motion changes.
Weight The pull of gravity on an object. On the Moon yours would be about one sixth of what it is here.

Speed, Velocity and Acceleration 23

Acceleration Any change in velocity: speeding up, slowing down or turning.
Average Total distance divided by total time gives this kind of speed for a whole trip.
Constant Staying the same. At this kind of speed you cover equal distances in equal times.
Deceleration The everyday word for slowing down: a drop in speed over time.
Direction The line along which something moves or points, such as north, up or left.
Displacement The straight-line distance and direction from where a trip began to where it ended.
Distance How much ground an object covers along its path.
Graph A picture of data. On a distance and time one, a steeper line means faster.
Magnitude The size of a quantity, leaving its direction out.
Meter The SI unit of length. Speed is often given as this many per second.
Motion A change in position over time.
Position Where an object is, described from a fixed starting place.
Rate How quickly something changes, found by dividing the change by the time taken.
Reference point A fixed place or object you compare with to tell whether something has moved.
Scalar A quantity with size only and no direction, such as speed, mass or time.
Second The SI unit of time. Sixty of them make a minute.
Slope The steepness of a line. On a distance and time graph it tells you the speed.
Speed How far something travels in a given time, such as 60 miles per hour.
Spring scale A tool that measures a pull or a weight by how far a coil inside it stretches.
Stopwatch A handheld timer worked by a button, used to time a race or a rolling ball.
Time What a stopwatch measures, in seconds, minutes and hours.
Vector A quantity with both size and direction, such as velocity or force.
Velocity Speed in a stated direction, such as 20 meters per second north.

Ways Things Move 26

Bounce To spring back after hitting a surface, as a rubber ball does.
Centripetal The word for a force that pulls a circling object inward. It comes from Latin for center seeking.
Circular The kind of motion that goes around and around at a fixed distance from a center.
Coast To keep rolling without pedaling or using the engine.
Collide To crash into another object.
Curve A path that bends smoothly instead of running straight.
Fall To drop toward the ground because gravity pulls you down.
Float To rest on top of water, held up by buoyancy.
Glide To move smoothly through the air without an engine.
Launch To send something into the air with a strong push.
Orbit The curved path of a moon or satellite held by gravity around a planet.
Oscillate To move back and forth in a steady rhythm, like a swing or a weight on a spring.
Pendulum A weight on a string or rod that swings to and fro. Galileo studied them from about 1602.
Projectile Any object thrown or launched into the air and then left to gravity.
Rebound To bounce back after hitting something.
Revolve To travel in a circle around something else, as the Moon does around Earth.
Roll To move by turning over and over, as a ball does down a hill.
Rotate To turn around a line through your own center, as a wheel does on its axle.
Sink To drop below the surface of water and keep going down.
Skid To slide out of control when wheels lose their hold on the road.
Slide To move smoothly over a surface while staying in touch with it.
Spin To turn quickly around a center point, as a top does.
Swing To move back and forth while hanging from a fixed point.
Trajectory The path a thrown or launched object follows through the air.
Vibrate To shake back and forth very quickly, as a plucked guitar string does.
Zigzag A path of short, sharp turns, first one way and then the other.

Newton's Laws of Motion 25

Balanced The word for forces that cancel out, so that an object's motion does not change.
Collision A crash between two objects. Their total momentum is the same before and after.
Equal The same in size. The third law says paired forces are this, never one bigger.
Equilibrium The state of an object when all the forces on it cancel out.
Feather In 1971 an astronaut on the Moon dropped a hammer and one of these. They landed together.
Free fall Dropping with gravity as the only force. Speed grows by about 9.8 meters per second each second.
Galileo The Italian scientist who reasoned that, without air, heavy and light objects fall at the same rate.
Impulse A force multiplied by the time it acts. It equals the change in momentum.
Inertia The way matter keeps doing what it is doing. Kepler named it from the Latin for laziness.
Kilogram The SI unit of mass, set in 1795 as the mass of a liter of water.
Law A rule of nature that holds every time it is tested. Isaac Newton set out three for motion.
Mass How much matter an object holds, measured in kilograms. It is the same on Earth and on the Moon.
Momentum Mass multiplied by velocity. A loaded truck has more of it than a bike at the same speed.
Net force The single push or pull left over when every push and pull on an object is added up.
Newton The unit of force. It honors Isaac, the English scientist who set out three laws of motion.
Normal force The push of a surface straight out against an object resting on it, like a table under a book.
Opposite Facing the other way. The third law says paired forces point in directions like this.
Pair A set of two. Forces always come this way: you push the wall and the wall pushes you.
Principia The short name of the 1687 book in which the three laws of motion were first published.
Reaction The push back that comes whenever one object pushes on another.
Recoil The backward kick of a cannon at the moment it fires its ball forward.
Rest The state of an object that is not moving. It stays that way until a net force acts.
Rocket A vehicle that blasts gas backward and is pushed forward in return: the third law at work.
Seat belt A strap that holds you in a car. Without it your body would keep moving when the car stops.
Vacuum A space with no air in it. There, a feather and a hammer fall side by side.

Simple Machines 28

Archimedes The ancient Greek credited with saying: give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.
Axe A chopping tool whose blade is a wedge. Stone hand versions may be the first wedges ever made.
Axle The rod through the center of a wheel, on which the wheel turns.
Block and tackle Two or more pulleys threaded with one rope, so that a small pull lifts a heavy load.
Bolt A metal pin with a screw thread, held tight by a nut.
Bottle opener A small lever that pries the metal cap off a drink.
Crane A tall lifting machine that uses pulleys and cables to raise and move heavy loads.
Crowbar A steel bar with a bent end, used as a lever to pry things apart.
Effort The push or pull that you put into a simple machine.
Fulcrum The fixed point on which a lever turns.
Gear A wheel with teeth that turns another toothed wheel, changing speed or direction.
Hammer A tool with a heavy head. Its claw end is a lever for pulling out nails.
Inclined plane A ramp: a flat surface set at a slope, which lifts a load with less force over a longer path.
Knife A cutting tool whose thin blade works as a wedge.
Lever A stiff bar that turns on a fixed point to lift or pry a load.
Load The object or weight that a simple machine lifts or moves.
Machine A device that changes the size or direction of a force to make a job easier.
Nutcracker A lever tool with the load between the hinge and your hand, used to break hard shells.
Pliers A gripping tool made of two levers joined at a pivot.
Pulley A grooved wheel with a rope around it, used to lift a load by pulling down.
Ramp The everyday name for an inclined plane, like the slope up to a loading dock.
Scissors A cutting tool made of two levers that share one fulcrum.
Screw An inclined plane that winds around a post. Turning it drives it forward.
Seesaw A playground lever with its fulcrum in the middle and a rider on each end.
Tweezers A pinching tool for tiny things, made of two levers joined at one end.
Wedge A simple machine with a thick end and a thin edge, used to split things or hold them apart.
Wheel A round part that turns. Joined to an axle, it counts among the simple machines.
Windlass A barrel turned by a crank that winds up a rope, as used to raise a bucket from a well.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The facts in the clues were checked on 2026-09-19 against Wikipedia, among them the articles on force (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force), Newton's laws of motion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion) and simple machines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_machine). Some clues were reworded on 2026-09-20, and any fact that changed was checked against Wikipedia the same day. Licence: own work

How it works

This force and motion word search puzzle opens on 16 of 24 key terms, Friction, Inertia and Velocity among them. Seven more lists, from pushes and pulls to simple machines, bring the total to 130 words.

Read the full guide

Five lists, one for each part of the unit

Under the puzzle, the Start from a list row follows the unit: Pushes, Pulls and Friction (28 words), Speed, Velocity and Acceleration (23), Ways Things Move (26), Newton's Laws of Motion (25) and Simple Machines (28). For younger pupils, Easy Force and Motion has 41 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Push, Ramp and Axle, and Ways Things Move adds Roll, Spin and Bounce. Hard Force and Motion has 28 words of 9 to 14 letters: press Hard, and the grid grows when a word needs room.

Pulley is missing from the key terms on purpose, because PULL reads inside it. Find it under Simple Machines.
Net force, Free fall and 10 more two-word entries are hidden as one run of letters: NETFORCE.
Acceleration fills 12 squares, so keep the key terms on a grid of 12 by 12 or more.

Questions and answers

Are energy words such as kinetic and potential in the puzzle?

No. Work, kinetic, potential and joule are left out on purpose: they fill the energy word search in this set. To add your own terms, type them at the end of the word list under the grid.

Does the force and motion word search come with an answer key?

Yes. It prints as page 2, behind the puzzle, on Letter or A4, and it fits only the grid on page 1. Press New puzzle and both change.

Did an astronaut really drop a hammer and a feather on the Moon?

Yes, in 1971, and they landed together, as Galileo had reasoned they would without air. Feather and Galileo are both in Newton's Laws of Motion. Tick Show clues, not words, in More options, and pupils hunt them from their stories.

All 130 words

Pushes, Pulls and Friction 28

Pushes, Pulls and Friction, continued

Speed, Velocity and Acceleration 23

Ways Things Move 26

Newton's Laws of Motion 25

Simple Machines 28

How it works

Five lists, one for each part of the unit

Questions and answers

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