Gingerbread Man Word Search Printables

A free printable gingerbread man word search built from the tale as first printed, with its answer key.

Name Date

Gingerbread Man Word Search

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

0 of 16 words found

YVNTENLXFDMAEVE

GCTSSSTQAROITGT

IEGBLCHASELSMFN

NIWOMANHTNBMGPA

GSQTETRIVERUNHA

ENPMECFOXOBSRDC

RMBKIHIBITOVENO

BARNEIEIODPGOPO

RGWRLZLBIUIPTUK

EWAQNODDOUGHCKI

AHILLISNSESTSTE

DMDAADMLGXARLOU

NZAUKNTTTYWILIR

FYEHPYSNIXKCOWO

DPGIWQLMNIOKIRN

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.

WomanWOMAN
OvenOVEN
GingerbreadGINGERBREAD
BarnBARN
FieldFIELD
CowCOW
PigPIG
FoxFOX
RunRUN
CatchCATCH
ChaseCHASE
FastFAST
TrickTRICK
RiverRIVER
CookieCOOKIE
DoughDOUGH

16 of 24 words from the Gingerbread Man Favorites list.

Who ran after the gingerbread boy first, next and last? Retell the tale in order.

Start from a list

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: Gingerbread Man Word Search

YVNTENLXFDMAEVE

GCTSSSTQAROITGT

IEGBLCHASELSMFN

NIWOMANHTNBMGPA

GSQTETRIVERUNHA

ENPMECFOXOBSRDC

RMBKIHIBITOVENO

BARNEIEIODPGOPO

RGWRLZLBIUIPTUK

EWAQNODDOUGHCKI

AHILLISNSESTSTE

DMDAADMLGXARLOU

NZAUKNTTTYWILIR

FYEHPYSNIXKCOWO

DPGIWQLMNIOKIRN

WOMAN, OVEN, GINGERBREAD, BARN, FIELD, COW, PIG, FOX, RUN, CATCH, CHASE, FAST, TRICK, RIVER, COOKIE, DOUGH

Next step Chart the tale on a fairy tale organizer Make a word search from your own story words

All 96 words

The Old Tale 24

Barn A farm building. A whole one full of threshers runs after the hero.
Cake What the baker cuts into the shape of a boy. The 1875 tale never says cookie.
Child What the old couple wished for very much and did not have.
Cow The first animal the hero calls to. She starts at once and still cannot keep up.
Door The oven has one. It is opened to see if the baking is done, and out he jumps.
Field Open farmland. In the 1875 tale it is full of mowers.
Fox The fastest runner in the tale. In 1875 he simply outruns the hero and eats him.
Gingerbread A spiced dough baked into the hero of this tale. The 1875 printing calls him a boy, not a man.
Gone No longer there. The hero ends the 1875 tale by saying he is all of this.
Half Two quarters. The second cry of the hero as he is eaten.
House The little old home at the edge of a wood where the tale begins.
Husband The little old man of the tale. His wife calls him and they both run.

Show all 96 words (84 more)

The Old Tale, continued

Little Small. The 1875 tale uses this word for the house, the old couple and the boy.
Magazine A paper that comes out every month. This tale was first printed in one for children in May 1875.
Maine The U.S. state of the girl who told the tale to the children of its 1875 writer.
Mowers Workers who cut tall grass. A field full of them runs after the hero.
Oven Where the cake goes to cook. When its door opens, the hero jumps out.
Pig The second animal the hero calls to, just before he meets the fox.
Quarter One of four equal parts. It is the first amount of himself the hero says he has lost.
Story The 1875 printing opens by calling itself one that a great-great-grandmother told.
Threshers Farm workers who beat grain loose from its stalks. A barn full of them joins in.
Wish To want something very much, as the old couple wanted a little one.
Woman The little old baker of the tale. She cuts a cake into the shape of a boy.
Wood A small forest. The old couple live at the edge of one.

The Chase 14

Away To a distance. It is the third word of the rhyme the hero calls out.
Boast To brag. The hero names everyone he has outrun, and the list gets longer.
Call To shout to someone. The hero does it to each new runner he passes.
Catch To get hold of a runner. Everyone tries. Only the fox does.
Chase To hurry after someone in order to grab them.
Escape To get free of those who are after you.
Fast At great speed. Foxes can run very much this way, the old tale warns.
Gobble To eat quickly and greedily.
Jump To spring up or out, as the hero does the moment the oven is opened.
Rhyme A short verse. The one the hero calls out grows by a line at every meeting.
Run To move fast on foot. The hero does it from the oven to the last page.
Sly Clever in a sneaky way. A word often used of a fox.
Taunt To make fun of someone who cannot keep up. Later tellings give the hero a line for it.
Trick To fool someone. In many later tellings the fox does this where the 1875 fox just ran.

Other Tellings 14

Bannock A flat loaf. In a Scottish tale one is the hero and takes to the road.
Bear A big forest animal that the round bread of the Russian tale also gets past.
Closer Nearer. In some tellings the fox says he cannot hear, so the hero comes this way.
Cross To get to the other side. The fox offers to take the hero over the water.
Hare A long-eared animal like a rabbit. The round bread of the Russian tale gets past one.
Kolobok A round bread that runs from an old couple in a Russian tale. A fox eats it too.
Mouth Where the fox coaxes the hero, a little nearer each time, in the tellings with water.
Norway The country where a tale of a runaway pancake was printed in the 1840s.
River Where the hero must stop in many later tellings. The 1875 printing has none.
Russia The country of the tale of a round bread that gets away from an old man and an old lady.
Scotland The country of the tale of the wee bannock.
Snatch To grab quickly. In some tellings the fox does it once the hero is near.
Version One telling of a tale. This one has many, and their endings differ.
Wolf A wild dog of the forest. The round bread of the Russian tale gets past one.

Baking the Cookie 22

Bake To cook with dry heat.
Buttons The best-loved decoration, down the front, made of gum drops, icing or raisins.
Christmas The holiday this cookie had become tied to by the 1800s.
Cinnamon A spice from tree bark, one of four that usually flavor the dough.
Cloves Dried flower buds used as a strong spice.
Cookie A small sweet baked treat. In Britain it is called a biscuit.
Crisp Firm and easy to snap.
Cutter A metal or plastic outline pressed into rolled dough.
Dough The soft mix that is rolled flat and cut before it is cooked.
Face Many of these cookies have one, pressed in or made of candy.
Feet Stubby on most gingerbread people, who have no fingers at all.
Flour Ground grain, the main dry part of any dough.
Gumdrops Small chewy candies, often used as buttons.
Honey A sweetener made by bees, also used in this kind of baking.
Icing A sweet paste piped on for the face and to stick the candy down.
Molasses A dark, thick syrup, one of the sweeteners used in this kind of baking.
Nutmeg A spice ground from a hard seed.
Queen Elizabeth I of England was one. The first known gingerbread figures were made at her court.
Raisins Dried grapes, one of the three usual things used for buttons.
Recipe A list of ingredients with the steps to follow.
Roll To press dough flat with a pin.
Sugar Sweet grains, one of three sweeteners used in this kind of baking.

Retelling the Story 22

Beginning The part of a story that shows who is in it and where.
Character A person or animal in a story.
Compare To tell how two tellings are alike and how they differ.
Cumulative The kind of tale this is: each scene adds one more to the cast and says the rest again.
Ending How a story finishes. This tale has more than one.
Event A single happening in a story.
First The word that starts a retelling.
Folktale A story handed down by telling, long before anyone wrote it down.
Hero The main character of a tale.
Last The word for the final event.
Middle The part of a story where the trouble grows.
Moral The lesson a story leaves behind.
Next A word that leads to the following event.
Pattern Something that happens the same way again and again.
Plot Everything that happens in a story, in order.
Predict To say ahead of time what a story will do.
Problem What goes wrong in a story.
Repeat To say or do again. The rhyme of this tale does it at every meeting.
Retell To tell a story again in your own words and in order.
Sequence The order in which things happen.
Setting The place and time of a story.
Summary A short retelling that keeps only the main events.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The Old Tale list follows the text of The Gingerbread Boy as printed in St. Nicholas Magazine, volume 2, number 7 (May 1875), pages 448 to 449, with the writer's letter on page 452 (public domain; read on 9 October 2026 in D. L. Ashliman's folktale archive, https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type2025.html). Later tellings, the tales from Norway, Russia and Scotland and the word cumulative were checked the same day against Wikipedia, The Gingerbread Man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gingerbread_Man); baking facts against Wikipedia, Gingerbread (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gingerbread) and Gingerbread man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gingerbread_man); word meanings against Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thresher and the entries for mower, bannock, molasses, gumdrop, taunt, sly and cumulative). Licence: own work

How it works

These gingerbread man word search printables open on a list with Run, Fox, River, Oven, Woman, Cow, Catch and Cookie. The bank of 96 follows the tale as first printed in 1875, then adds baking and retelling words.

Read the full guide

The tale as printed in 1875

The Old Tale has 24 words from the first printing, in St. Nicholas Magazine: a little old Woman and her Husband, a barn full of Threshers, a field full of Mowers, a Cow, a Pig and the Fox. The hero there is a boy cut from Cake, and no River is crossed. The river and the fox's trick are in Other Tellings (14), with the Russian Kolobok.

Words for a retelling lesson

Retelling the Story (22) has Sequence, First, Next, Last, Character, Setting and Cumulative, the name for a tale that adds to its cast in every scene. The Chase (14) holds the verbs and Baking the Cookie (22) the kitchen. Two ruled lines under the list ask who gave chase first, next and last.

The boy's last words count up in quarters, so the puzzle sits well beside a first fractions lesson.

Questions and answers

Is the gingerbread man word search free to print?

Yes, with nothing to sign up for. Press Print or save as PDF: the puzzle comes out with a name and date line and two writing lines, and the answer key follows on its own page, on Letter or A4.

Where did the gingerbread man story come from?

It was first printed as The Gingerbread Boy in St. Nicholas Magazine in May 1875. Its writer had it from a girl from Maine, who had heard it from an old lady. Runaway food tales are also told in Norway, Russia and Scotland.

How does the original gingerbread man story end?

In the 1875 printing the fox simply outruns the gingerbread boy and eats him. As he goes, the boy says he is quarter gone, half gone, three-quarters gone and all gone.

Is there an easy gingerbread man word search for kindergarten?

Yes. Easy Gingerbread Man has the 53 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Fox, Cow, Pig, Run and Oven. On the Easy level a word reads across or down, never backwards.

All 96 words

The Old Tale 24

The Old Tale, continued

The Chase 14

Other Tellings 14

Baking the Cookie 22

Retelling the Story 22

How it works

The tale as printed in 1875

Words for a retelling lesson

Questions and answers

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