Macromolecules Crossword Puzzle

Print a criss-cross vocabulary crossword on the four macromolecules: carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, a set for each.

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Macromolecules Crossword

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Answer key: Macromolecules Crossword

1PROTEI2NU3ST4ARCHC5MIMLOLI6GLUCOSENKNIOO7PCM8CARBOHYDRATECLCR9OILY10LIPIDDMDE11SUCROSE

Across 1 PROTEIN · 3 STARCH · 6 GLUCOSE · 8 CARBOHYDRATE · 9 OIL · 10 LIPID · 11 SUCROSE

Down 2 NUCLEICACID · 3 SILK · 4 AMINOACID · 5 MONOMER · 7 POLYMER

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Monomers, Polymers and Lab Tests 21

  • Benedict His name is on a deep-blue lab solution that picks out some sugars
  • Biuret Test first seen in 1833: copper ions go mauve when peptides are present
  • Carboxyl The -COOH group at one end of every fat chain
  • Condensation Two molecules become one, and a small one such as H2O is let go
  • Covalent Kind of bond made by sharing, not by giving away, electrons
  • Dehydration ___ reaction: two units join and H2O is lost
  • Digestion What the gut does to a meal: big molecules in, small ones out
  • Hydrolysis Reverse of joining with loss of H2O: a link is split by adding H2O
  • Hydroxyl The -OH group; the three-carbon alcohol of a fat carries three
  • Iodine Element whose drops reveal plant storage sugar by going blue-black
  • Macro Opposite of micro-
  • Monomer Single unit that joins others like it
  • Nitrogen N: every base of DNA contains it
  • Organic Word for carbon-based chemistry
  • Plastic Everyday name for many man-made chain molecules
  • Polymer Like a bead necklace: many small units in a row
  • Rubber Latex product that is a natural chain molecule
  • Staudinger German chemist whose proof that giant molecules exist won a 1953 Nobel Prize
  • Sudan Family of dyes with a high affinity for fats
  • Sulfur Element S, whose atoms pair up in an S–S bridge
  • Synthesis The building of a large molecule from small ones

Carbohydrates 24

  • Amylopectin Bushy, much-forked one of the two parts of plant storage sugar
  • Amylose The unbranched one of the two parts of plant storage sugar
  • Beet Root crop refined into white table crystals
  • Carbohydrate Fruit, milk and candy all hold this class of molecule
  • Cellulose Paper is mostly this stuff from trees
  • Chitin Second only to plant-wall chain among sugar chains; beetles and shrimp wear it
  • Cotton Crop whose fiber is nine-tenths cell-wall chain
  • Exoskeleton Hard casing that a beetle has in place of an inner frame
  • Fructose Ketonic sugar that is half of every table-sugar molecule
  • Galactose One of the two halves of the sugar in milk
  • Glucose Sugar that a green leaf makes from CO2
  • Glycogen The body's own storage sugar, branched like a bush
  • Hexose Class of sugars with half a dozen C's
  • Honey Bees make it; its sweetness comes from two simple sugars
  • Lactose The sugar of dairy foods
  • Maltose Double sugar: the commonest simple sugar, twice
  • Pectin Powder from citrus that makes jam set
  • Pentose Class of sugars with five C's
  • Ribose The sugar in RNA's rails
  • Saccharide Chemist's word for a sugar
  • Starch Rice, corn and cassava are full of it
  • Sucrose It is what you stir into tea to sweeten it
  • Sugarcane Towering grass of the tropics, milled for the white stuff in the bowl
  • Wood Tree material that is nearly half plant-wall chain

Lipids 23

  • Adipose ___ tissue: body fat
  • Bilayer Two layers of fat molecules that wrap every cell
  • Blubber Coat beneath the skin that works as a thermal insulator in the sea
  • Butter Solid made by working the fat out of cream
  • Cholesterol Four-ring compound made by all animal cells
  • Cuticle Waxy film that coats a leaf
  • Fatty acid Tail of a fat: a long string of CH2 units ending in -COOH
  • Glycerol Sweet-tasting, viscous liquid with three -OH groups; fats are built on it
  • Hormone Signal sent through the blood; some kinds have a four-ring skeleton
  • Hydrophilic Drawn to H2O and apt to mix into it
  • Hydrophobic Water-fearing
  • Lard Soft white fat rendered from a pig
  • Lipid Fats and sterols belong to this class
  • Membrane Wrapper of every cell, two fat molecules thick
  • Oil Fat that pours rather than spreads at room temperature
  • Olive Tree whose fruit yields a fat that is mainly oleic chains
  • Phospholipid Fat-like molecule with a P group at one end; cell boundaries are made of it
  • Saturated Holding all the hydrogen it can: no C=C anywhere in its chains
  • Steroid Member of a family that shares a skeleton of four joined rings
  • Triglyceride One three-carbon alcohol with three fatty chains attached
  • Unsaturated Describes a fat with at least one C=C bond
  • Vitamin A, D, E or K, each of which dissolves in fat
  • Wax Bees build their comb from it

Proteins 32

  • Actin Globular unit that lines up to form threads of the cytoskeleton
  • Albumin Family of globular molecules; the most common kinds are in blood serum
  • Amino acid One link in the chains that make hair and muscle
  • Amylase It is in saliva, so bread begins to change in the mouth
  • Antibody Y-shaped unit in the blood that latches onto foreign substances
  • Casein It makes up about 80% of its class in cow's milk
  • Catalase It splits H2O2 into H2O and O2
  • Catalyst Whatever quickens a reaction and can be recovered when it ends
  • Collagen Tendons, ligaments and skin are full of it
  • Denature To lose shape, as egg white does in a hot pan
  • Disulfide ___ bridge: S-to-S link between two cysteines
  • Enzyme It does one chemical job over and over and is not destroyed by it
  • Essential Said of the nine that people must get from food
  • Fibroin Main material of a silkworm's thread
  • Fold A new chain must do this before it can work
  • Gelatin Brittle when dry, rubbery when moist: a food ingredient from animal body parts
  • Helix Coil; the alpha kind is common inside a chain
  • Hemoglobin Iron-holding carrier that ferries O2 from lungs or gills to the tissues
  • Insulin It is made by beta cells of the pancreas
  • Keratin Your hair and fingernails are made of it; so are a bird's feathers
  • Lactase Without it, milk cannot be fully digested
  • Myosin Family of tiny engines behind every flex of an arm
  • Polypeptide Peptide's longer relative: a continuous string of many links
  • Primary First of four levels: just the sequence, end to end
  • Protein You get it from meat, dairy, nuts and beans
  • Quaternary Last of the four: how separate subunits dock together
  • Ribosome Site in every cell where new chains are put together
  • Secondary Level two of four: nearby coils and pleats
  • Silk Webs and moth cocoons are spun from it
  • Substrate What binds at the active site and is changed there
  • Tertiary Third of four levels: the overall 3-D form of a single strand
  • Titin Largest known of its class, found in muscle

Nucleic Acids 20

  • Adenine The A of DNA's four-letter alphabet
  • ATP Cell fuel: a base, a five-carbon sugar and a row of three P groups
  • Backbone Sugar, P, sugar, P: the rail down each side of DNA
  • Codon Triplet that spells one building block, or else "stop"
  • Cytosine The C of the genetic alphabet
  • Deoxyribose Sugar of DNA: the RNA sugar with one -OH swapped for H
  • Gene Part of DNA whose base order spells out how to assemble one chain
  • Genome An organism's complete set of DNA
  • Guanine The G of the genetic alphabet
  • Ladder Twist one and you have the shape of DNA
  • Messenger ___ RNA: copy of DNA's instructions, read to build a chain
  • Nucleic acid DNA or RNA, by its class
  • Nucleotide DNA and RNA are long chains of this unit
  • Nucleus A cell's DNA sits here, and copies of its instructions leave from here
  • Phosphate PO4 unit; one sits between neighboring sugars in DNA
  • Purine Kind of base that A and G are, named for their fused-ring parent
  • Pyrimidine Simple-ring kind of base, such as C, T or U
  • Thymine Partner of A in DNA; U takes its place in RNA
  • Transfer ___ RNA: adaptor that brings each building block to a growing chain
  • Uracil Base found in RNA alone; it pairs with A

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site for high school biology, in five sets: monomers, polymers and lab tests, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids. Facts were checked against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), the NHGRI Talking Glossary of Genomic and Genetic Terms (genome.gov) and two MedlinePlus pages (medlineplus.gov), in October 2026. Where the name of a class is an answer, no other clue prints it. Foods are named as examples, not as diet advice. Licence: own work

How it works

This macromolecules crossword puzzle fits Letter or A4, answer key included. The first puzzle has 12 words, among them Carbohydrate, Lipid, Protein, Nucleic acid, Monomer, Polymer and Amino acid. No clue gives away another answer: Collagen is clued by tendons.

Read the full guide

A set for each macromolecule

Carbohydrates has Glycogen, Chitin, Lactose and Amylose. Lipids has Triglyceride, Phospholipid, Cholesterol and Blubber. Proteins has Collagen, Keratin, Hemoglobin and Denature. Nucleic Acids has Nucleotide, Codon, Uracil and Purine. Monomers, Polymers and Lab Tests has Dehydration, Hydrolysis, Covalent and Staudinger.

Four lab tests as answers

Iodine goes blue-black with starch. Benedict is the name on the deep-blue solution that tests for some sugars. Biuret is the copper test that goes mauve when peptides are present. Sudan is a family of dyes with a high affinity for fats.

  • Print one macromolecule's set after its lesson, and Macromolecule Basics as the unit review.

Questions and answers

What grade is the macromolecules crossword puzzle for?

Macromolecule Basics suits grades 7 to 9, with answers such as Starch, Glucose, Enzyme and Honey. The five themed sets use the vocabulary of high school biology, such as Triglyceride and Polypeptide. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

Does the macromolecules crossword puzzle have an answer key?

Yes. Every print ends with the key: the solved grid, then the answers by clue number. It costs nothing and there is nothing to sign up for.

What are the four macromolecules?

Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids. Proteins, nucleic acids and long carbohydrates such as starch are polymers, chains of repeating monomers. Lipids are grouped with them, though only some lipids are macromolecules.

What is the monomer of a protein?

An amino acid. Amino acids link by peptide bonds into a chain called a polypeptide, and a protein is one or more polypeptides folded into shape.

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