Intolerable Acts Word Search

Print 15 words of the Intolerable Acts of 1774 in one grid, with the answer key on a second page.

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0 of 15 words found

EWBAASGOVERNORY

EXHHALAITNMPHIU

APARLIAMENTYSGJ

FNVEVCTOFNCAEHR

HLTBUHSNINBDCTB

GTGOUAJAWIAIOSO

COQUARTERINGLHS

OIEDNTYTHFTJOGT

ESREREPEALCENNO

RIRLGRSMENEAISN

CRXEAECONGRESSR

IVIGNSMYNPORTIN

VDVADHEACOUNCIL

EINTOLERABLECAR

FCDEIPETITIONSR

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.

ParliamentPARLIAMENT
CoerciveCOERCIVE
IntolerableINTOLERABLE
PortPORT
QuarteringQUARTERING
BostonBOSTON
ColonistCOLONIST
CharterCHARTER
GovernorGOVERNOR
CouncilCOUNCIL
CongressCONGRESS
DelegateDELEGATE
PetitionPETITION
RepealREPEAL
RightsRIGHTS

15 words from the Intolerable Acts list.

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Answer key: Intolerable Acts Word Search

EWBAASGOVERNORY

EXHHALAITNMPHIU

APARLIAMENTYSGJ

FNVEVCTOFNCAEHR

HLTBUHSNINBDCTB

GTGOUAJAWIAIOSO

COQUARTERINGLHS

OIEDNTYTHFTJOGT

ESREREPEALCENNO

RIRLGRSMENEAISN

CRXEAECONGRESSR

IVIGNSMYNPORTIN

VDVADHEACOUNCIL

EINTOLERABLECAR

FCDEIPETITIONSR

PARLIAMENT, COERCIVE, INTOLERABLE, PORT, QUARTERING, BOSTON, COLONIST, CHARTER, GOVERNOR, COUNCIL, CONGRESS, DELEGATE, PETITION, REPEAL, RIGHTS

Next step Make a puzzle from your own 1774 word list Scramble these Intolerable Acts words

All 71 words

The Five Acts 18

Barns Farm buildings, named in the housing law beside empty houses as places for soldiers to sleep.
Blockade Shutting a harbor so that no ship can land or take on goods.
Coercive The name the laws went by in 1774, from a word that means to force.
Five The number of laws: three for Massachusetts, one on housing soldiers and one on Quebec.
Government Word in the title of the law of May 20, 1774, that rewrote how Massachusetts was run.
Insufferable Another old name for the laws, with the same meaning as unbearable.
Intolerable Too harsh to bear. This name for the five laws came into use only in the 1800s.
Justice Fair treatment under law. A law with this word in its title moved some officials' trials far away.
Marblehead The town the first law made the place for ships to enter in Boston's stead.
Parliament The lawmakers in London who passed all five laws in 1774.
Port A town where ships load and unload. The first law shut Boston's from June 1, 1774.
Punitive Meant as a penalty. The laws followed the dumping of 342 chests in December 1773.
Quartering Housing soldiers. One law let a governor lodge them in empty buildings and barns.
Quebec The province to the north that the fifth law enlarged, down into the Ohio Country.
Salem The town the first law named as the new seat of the colony's government.
Trials Court hearings. An accused official's could now be held in another colony or in Britain.
Troops Soldiers. The law on housing them applied to every colony, not only to Massachusetts.
Witnesses People who tell a court what they saw. They too had to travel to the faraway court, with expenses paid.

Show all 71 words (53 more)

Massachusetts in 1774 17

Appointed Chosen by someone in power, not voted in.
Assembly The colony's elected lawmakers, sent home by the governor in October 1774.
Boston The Massachusetts town whose protest brought the laws on, and the first to feel them.
Charter The document of 1691 that set out how Massachusetts ran itself. One law all but cancelled it.
Colonist A settler in one of Britain's American provinces.
Council The governor's advisers. Massachusetts used to elect them; after 1774 the king chose them.
Elected Chosen by vote.
Governor The king's chief officer in the colony. A general took the post on May 13, 1774.
Hardship Hard times, such as a seaport faces when no ship may come or go.
Judges They preside in court. The governor could now name and remove them on his own.
Massachusetts The colony that three of the five laws dealt with directly.
Province Official word for the colony, as in the ___ of Massachusetts Bay.
Relief Help for people in need. Food, supplies and money came to Boston from Nova Scotia to Georgia.
Self-Rule Running your own affairs. The laws took much of it away from the colony.
Sheriff A county's law officer, whom the governor could now name without asking anyone.
Town Meeting Where New England voters settled local business. Now only one a year was allowed without leave.
Trade Buying and selling. Boston's by sea stopped on June 1, 1774.

How the Colonies Answered 20

Association The pact signed on October 20, 1774: no British goods would be bought from December 1.
Carpenters' Hall The Philadelphia building where the colonies met in the fall of 1774.
Committee A small group chosen to do a job. A lasting one for letters was set up in Massachusetts in 1772.
Concord A town where that new Massachusetts congress met after it left Salem.
Congress The gathering of colonies that sat in Philadelphia from September 5 to October 26, 1774.
Correspondence Letter writing. Committees named for it carried news between Patriot leaders in every colony.
Covenant A solemn promise. Boston's letter-writing committee asked every colonist to sign one against British goods.
Delegate A person sent to speak for others. Twelve colonies sent 56 of them to Philadelphia.
Georgia The one colony of the thirteen that sent nobody to Philadelphia in 1774.
Militia Citizens who drill as part-time soldiers.
Minutemen Members of the citizen forces picked to turn out at very short notice.
Petition A written request. The colonies sent one to the king asking for the laws to be cancelled.
Powder Alarm The scare of September 1, 1774, when a false rumor of bloodshed spread as far as Connecticut.
Provincial Word in the name of the congress that Massachusetts set up for itself in October 1774.
Repeal To cancel a law. It was what the colonies asked of Britain all through 1774.
Resistance Refusing to give in. The meeting in Philadelphia was called to plan a common course of it.
Resolves Formal statements of what a meeting has decided.
Suffolk The Massachusetts county, Boston's own, whose leaders rejected the new government law on September 9, 1774.
Sympathy Fellow feeling. The laws stirred it for Massachusetts in the other colonies.
Unite To join together. Punishing one colony pushed the others to do this.

Words of Law and Rule 16

Authority The right to give orders and be obeyed.
Bill A proposed law that has not yet been passed.
Commons The elected house in London. The prime minister defended the plan there on April 22, 1774.
Consent Agreement. Colonists said no charge could be laid on them without theirs.
Debt Money owed. Britain's was deep after the war that ended in 1763.
Grievance A complaint about unfair treatment.
Liberty Freedom from unfair rule.
Monarch A king or queen.
Obey To do what a rule or a ruler says.
Outrage Strong anger at a wrong. The laws caused it in all thirteen colonies.
Prime Minister The head of the British government, who defended the five laws before the lawmakers in 1774.
Rights What the law says every person is owed. Colonists called the five laws a violation of theirs.
Royal Assent The king's approval, which turns a proposal into law. The first of the five received it on March 31, 1774.
Stamp Act The 1765 charge on printed paper, cancelled after loud protest in the colonies.
Statute A written law.
Tyranny Cruel and unfair use of power.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the 71 words and every clue were written for this page. Dates and the terms of each act were checked on October 9, 2026 against the Massachusetts Historical Society's page on the Coercive Acts (https://www.masshist.org/revolution/coercive.php) and English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts, the article on each of the five acts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Continental_Congress, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_Resolves and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Association. Licence: own work

How it works

This Intolerable Acts word search hides 15 words, among them Coercive, Port, Quartering, Charter, Council and Petition. Four more lists set out the five acts, Massachusetts in 1774, the colonies' answer and the words of law behind them.

Read the full guide

A free printable word search for Intolerable Acts week

Start from a list splits the 71 words: The Five Acts (18), Massachusetts in 1774 (17), How the Colonies Answered (20) and Words of Law and Rule (16). How the Colonies Answered has Suffolk, Association, Powder Alarm and Carpenters' Hall, which a general Revolution sheet leaves out.

Each meaning says what a law did

"Where New England voters settled local business. Now only one a year was allowed without leave." is Town Meeting. "Court hearings. An accused official's could now be held in another colony or in Britain." is Trials. Under More options, tick Show clues, not words, and the sheet becomes a review of the five laws.

Easy Intolerable Acts keeps to 9 words of 3 to 5 letters, such as Port, Bill, Debt and Obey.
The grid drops spaces, hyphens and apostrophes, so look for TOWNMEETING, SELFRULE, ROYALASSENT and CARPENTERSHALL.

Questions and answers

What were the five Intolerable Acts?

The Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, the Quartering Act and the Quebec Act. Parliament passed all five in 1774; the Quebec Act was not aimed at Massachusetts, but colonists counted it with the rest.

Why were they called the Intolerable Acts?

Because colonists found them too harsh to bear. The name itself came later, in the 1800s; in 1774 people in Britain and America called them the Coercive Acts. Both words are in the opening puzzle.

What did the Boston Port Act do?

It closed the port of Boston to ships from June 1, 1774, until the town paid for the tea destroyed in December 1773. It also named Salem the seat of government and Marblehead the port of entry.

How did the colonies respond to the Intolerable Acts?

Twelve colonies sent 56 delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, September 5 to October 26, 1774. It petitioned the king and agreed to stop buying British goods from December 1. The night that started it is in the Boston Tea Party word search.

All 71 words

The Five Acts 18

Massachusetts in 1774 17

How the Colonies Answered 20

Words of Law and Rule 16

How it works

A free printable word search for Intolerable Acts week

Each meaning says what a law did

Questions and answers

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