Moon Phases Word Search

A moon phases word search printable with its key; each phase's clue gives its place in the cycle.

Name Date

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

0 of 20 words found

WAXINGGIBBOUSUN

WNHAEEZEAWPHASE

JEOZECLBTADLKFO

HWPRILUVDXWTDWX

BMWANINGGIBBOUS

MONTHPACGNECNTC

ROHTWSRLCGABNLT

NNPMTEDQRCRUUII

GHLASTQUARTERND

GRAVITYSTEHBPBE

WANINGCRESCENTE

ORBITIFYRCTTSOR

MARIADEWUETJLLG

AIFULLMOONCYCLE

FIRSTQUARTERTAL

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.

New moonNEW MOON
Waxing crescentWAXING CRESCENT
First quarterFIRST QUARTER
Waxing gibbousWAXING GIBBOUS
Full moonFULL MOON
Waning gibbousWANING GIBBOUS
Last quarterLAST QUARTER
Waning crescentWANING CRESCENT
PhasePHASE
CycleCYCLE
EarthEARTH
SunSUN
OrbitORBIT
LunarLUNAR
GravityGRAVITY
MonthMONTH
EclipseECLIPSE
TideTIDE
CraterCRATER
MariaMARIA

20 words from the Moon Phases Key Terms list.

Start from a list

Easy: words go across and down.

More options

Show clues, not words

Word list

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

The puzzle changes as you go. See the puzzle

Answer key: Moon Phases Word Search

WAXINGGIBBOUSUN

WNHAEEZEAWPHASE

JEOZECLBTADLKFO

HWPRILUVDXWTDWX

BMWANINGGIBBOUS

MONTHPACGNECNTC

ROHTWSRLCGABNLT

NNPMTEDQRCRUUII

GHLASTQUARTERND

GRAVITYSTEHBPBE

WANINGCRESCENTE

ORBITIFYRCTTSOR

MARIADEWUETJLLG

AIFULLMOONCYCLE

FIRSTQUARTERTAL

NEW MOON, WAXING CRESCENT, FIRST QUARTER, WAXING GIBBOUS, FULL MOON, WANING GIBBOUS, LAST QUARTER, WANING CRESCENT, PHASE, CYCLE, EARTH, SUN, ORBIT, LUNAR, GRAVITY, MONTH, ECLIPSE, TIDE, CRATER, MARIA

Next step Find the moons of the other planets Print the space travel words for the Moon landings

All 124 words

Phases of the Moon 18

Age How many days have passed since the last new moon.
Cycle The round of eight phases, which repeats about every 29.5 days.
Earthshine The dim glow on the Moon's unlit part, from sunlight reflected off our planet.
First quarter The third phase: half of the lit side shows, a fourth of the way through the monthly trip.
Full moon The fifth phase: opposite the Sun, with the whole day side turned toward Earth.
Last quarter The seventh phase: half of the lit side shows again, now while the shape is thinning.
Lunation A lunar month: the time between two successive new moons.
New moon The first phase: the lit side faces the Sun, so the disk cannot be seen from Earth.
Phase The apparent shape of the Moon's lit part as seen from afar.
Sidereal Describes the Moon's orbital period of about 27.3 days, shorter than a round of phases.
Sunlit Lit by the nearest star, as half of the Moon always is.
Synodic Describes the month of the phases, about 2.2 days longer than one trip against the stars.
Terminator The moving line that divides the daylit side of a body from its dark night side.
Third quarter The name NASA's list uses for the seventh of the eight phases.
Waning crescent The eighth phase: a thin curve in the morning sky before the cycle starts over.
Waning gibbous The sixth phase: just past full, when the lit part begins to shrink.
Waxing crescent The second phase: a thin lit sliver that grows a little each day.
Waxing gibbous The fourth phase: most of the dayside has come into view and it keeps growing.

Show all 124 words (106 more)

Waxing, Waning and Moon Shapes 21

Arc A curved line; from afar the edge of the Moon looks like part of a circle.
Bright Describes the Moon in Earth's night sky, where no other object outshines it.
Bulge To curve outward, as the lit edge of a gibbous Moon does.
Crescent The curved, horned shape of the Moon when less than half of its face is lit.
Dark Describes the unlit night side of the Moon.
Disk The round face of the Moon as it appears in the sky.
Full Completely lit, as the Moon looks when it is opposite the Sun.
Gibbous Bulging outward: the shape of the Moon when more than half of its face is lit.
Grow What the lit part of the Moon appears to do each day while waxing.
Half With "moon", a casual name for the first and third quarter phases.
Horns The two tapered points of a crescent Moon; on a wet moon they point up.
Limb The edge of the Moon's visible disk as seen from Earth.
Moon Earth's one natural satellite.
New The word for the Moon at the start of its cycle, when it cannot be seen.
Quarter In a phase name, how far the Moon is through its cycle, not its shape.
Shape The outline of something; a lunar phase is the apparent one of the lit Moon.
Shrink What the lit part of the Moon appears to do each day while waning.
Sliver A very thin lit part of the Moon, as in a young crescent.
Thin Narrow: the look of a crescent close to new.
Waning Shrinking: said of the Moon while its lit shape thins after full.
Waxing Growing: said of the Moon while its lit shape thickens from new toward full.

Moon, Earth and Sun 26

Albedo The fraction of sunlight that a body reflects; the Moon's is like that of asphalt.
Apogee The point in the Moon's path where it is farthest from Earth.
Calendar With "lunar", a system whose months record the cycles of the Moon's phases.
Conjunction The closeness of two bodies in the sky; the Moon and Sun are in it at new moon.
Earth The planet that the Moon orbits; the third from the Sun.
Ecliptic The path that the Sun appears to trace on the celestial sphere.
Ellipse An oval curve around two focal points; the shape of the Moon's path.
Far side The half of the Moon that is turned away from Earth.
Gravity The force that draws material objects toward each other.
Libration An apparent wobble that lets observers see slightly more than half of the Moon over time.
Lunar Of the Moon, as in the month that one round of phases takes.
Month A unit of time about as long as one cycle of the Moon's phases.
Moonlight Light from the Moon's surface, which is mostly reflected sunlight.
Moonrise The time when the Moon's upper edge appears above the horizon.
Moonset The time when the Moon's upper edge disappears below the horizon.
Near side The half of the Moon that is turned toward Earth.
Node One of the two points where the Moon's path crosses the ecliptic.
Opposition The state of two bodies on opposite sides of the sky, like the Moon and Sun at full moon.
Orbit The curved path of one body around another under an attracting force.
Perigee The point in the Moon's path where it is nearest to Earth.
Reflect What the Moon's surface does with sunlight, since it makes no light of its own.
Rotation A spinning motion; the Moon's takes as long as one trip around Earth.
Satellite A body that orbits a planet; the Moon is the only natural one our planet has.
Sun The star at the center of the Solar System, whose light the Moon reflects.
Syzygy A roughly straight-line arrangement of three bodies, such as the Sun, Earth and Moon.
Tidal locking The state that keeps the same hemisphere of the Moon facing Earth.

Eclipses and Tides 19

Annular Describes a solar eclipse seen when the Moon appears slightly smaller than the Sun.
Corona The outermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere.
Ebb To fall, as sea level does over several hours after high water.
Eclipse With "lunar", the event in which Earth's shadow falls across the Moon.
High tide The local maximum that the sea reaches when the water stops rising.
Intertidal Describes the zone above water at low tide and under water at high tide.
King tide An especially high spring tide; the name is not a scientific term.
Low tide The local minimum that the sea reaches when the water stops falling.
Neap tide The tide with the smallest range, around first and third quarter.
Occultation An event in which one object is hidden by another that passes in front of it.
Partial Describes an eclipse in which only part of the Sun is hidden.
Saros A length of time of exactly 223 synodic months, which can be used to predict eclipses.
Sea level The height of the ocean's surface, whose periodic rise and fall is the tide.
Shadow A dark area where an object blocks light; Earth's falls on the Moon in a lunar eclipse.
Slack With "water", the moment when the tidal current ceases.
Solar Describes the eclipse in which the Moon comes between the Sun and Earth.
Spring tide The tide with the greatest range, around new moon and full moon.
Tidal range The height gap between high water and low water.
Umbra The darkest, innermost part of a shadow: there the light source is hidden completely.

Surface of the Moon 21

Basalt The dark rock of the lunar plains, formed from lava.
Basin A huge, ancient hollow left by a collision; lava flowing into such places made the dark plains.
Crater A hole or hollow in the surface; all of the Moon's were formed by impacts.
Ejecta Material thrown out when a crater forms.
Exosphere The only kind of atmosphere the Moon has: a very sparse outer layer.
Highlands The more reflective regions of the Moon, outside its dark plains.
Impact The strike of a smaller object at very high speed, which forms a crater.
Lava tube A tunnel formed where molten rock went on flowing under a hardened surface.
Mare One dark lunar plain; the singular of the Latin word for "seas".
Maria Large, dark plains of basalt on the Moon; the word is Latin for "seas".
Mascon A region of a crust with unusually strong gravity; short for mass concentration.
Moonquake A shaking of the lunar surface.
Rays Bright streaks of fine material thrown out when a crater was formed.
Regolith The loose material that covers the surface of the Moon.
Rille A long, narrow depression in the Moon's surface that looks like a channel.
Selenography The study of the Moon's surface and its physical features.
Soil With "lunar", the finer fraction of the loose surface material.
Swirls Bright, puzzling markings found across the Moon's surface.
Theia The name given to the Mars-sized body thought to have struck the early Earth.
Tranquility The Sea of this name is a lunar plain; it holds the first place people visited off Earth.
Vacuum Space empty of matter; for most practical purposes the Moon is surrounded by one.

Moon Names and Sky Sights 17

Beaver moon A name for the full moon of November.
Blood moon A popular name for a lunar eclipse, when the Moon turns orange or red.
Blue moon In one use of the name, the second full moon in a calendar month.
Corn moon With "full", one more name for the harvest moon; "barley moon" is another.
Dark moon A name for the final crescent that can still be seen as the Moon wanes.
Half moon What people often call a quarter phase, since half of the disk looks lit.
Harvest moon The full moon nearest the autumnal equinox in September.
Hunter's moon The full moon that follows the one nearest the autumnal equinox.
Micromoon A full or new moon near the farthest point of its orbit.
Milk moon A Colonial American name for the full moon of May.
Moon dog A bright spot beside the Moon, on one side or on both; also called a mock moon.
Moonbow A rainbow produced by moonlight rather than direct sunlight.
Old moon A waning sliver, shortly before the Moon lines up with the Sun and becomes new.
Pink moon A name that has gained currency for a full moon in April.
Sickle moon A name for the crescent Moon early in its cycle, a shape used as a symbol.
Supermoon A full or new moon near the closest point of its orbit, looking slightly larger.
Wet moon A crescent whose horns point up, so that it looks like a bowl or a smile.

Moon Phases Key Terms 1

Tide The periodic rise and fall of the sea, caused mainly by the pull of the Moon and the Sun.

Hard Moon 1

Penumbra The part of a shadow where the light source is only partly blocked.

How this list was compiled: Own work: the word list and every clue were written for this page. The eight phases, their order and what each looks like were checked on 2026-10-08 against NASA's Moon Phases page (https://science.nasa.gov/moon/moon-phases/); the other facts in the clues against English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), among them the articles on the lunar phase (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase), the Moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon), the full moon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_moon), the lunar eclipse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse), the solar eclipse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse), the tide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide) and the lunar mare (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_mare). Licence: own work

How it works

This moon phases word search opens on all eight phase names, New moon to Waning crescent, with 12 moon words such as Crater, Orbit and Tide.

Read the full guide

What the phases of the moon word search teaches

Waxing means the lit shape is thickening and waning that it is thinning. Gibbous is the shape that bulges outward; a crescent is the horned one. Under Start from a list, Phases of the Moon adds Third quarter, Terminator, Earthshine and Lunation.

A moon phase word search for younger classes

Waxing, Waning and Moon Shapes has 21 single words, such as Gibbous, Crescent, Sliver and Horns. For the moon word search beyond the phases, pick Surface of the Moon (Crater, Maria, Regolith), Eclipses and Tides, or Moon Names and Sky Sights, where Harvest moon and Blue moon sit beside Moonbow.

Moon is left out of the opening list: it reads inside New moon and Full moon.
Each two-word phase hides as one run of letters: WAXINGGIBBOUS.

Questions and answers

What are the 8 phases of the moon in order?

New moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent. That is NASA's list; the seventh is also known as last quarter, the name on the first grid.

Why is it called a first quarter moon when it looks half lit?

Quarter refers to how far the Moon is through its cycle around Earth, not to its shape. At first quarter you see half of the lit half, which is why people casually call it a half moon.

How long does the moon take to go through all its phases?

About 29.5 days, one lunar month. The Moon's trip around Earth measured against the stars takes about 27.3 days, so the phases need about 2.2 days more.

Is there a printable moon phases word search with the key?

Yes. The sheet is one page and the key the next, on Letter or A4. Tick Show clues, not words, and Full moon prints as "The fifth phase: opposite the Sun, with the whole day side turned toward Earth."

All 124 words

Phases of the Moon 18

Waxing, Waning and Moon Shapes 21

Moon, Earth and Sun 26

Eclipses and Tides 19

Surface of the Moon 21

Moon Names and Sky Sights 17

Moon Phases Key Terms 1

Hard Moon 1

How it works

What the phases of the moon word search teaches

A moon phase word search for younger classes

Questions and answers

More tools