Free Printable Crossword Puzzle for the Roaring 20's

Print a criss-cross Roaring Twenties crossword of jazz, flappers, new machines, laws and headlines, with its answer key.

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Roaring Twenties Crossword

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Answer key: Roaring Twenties Crossword

1SUFFRAGE2PPR3CEOH4JAZZ5CRASHAKIRE6FBL7ASSEMBLYLINESATSYPIT8RP9SOLO10HARLEMNNDRI11BOOM

Across 1 SUFFRAGE · 4 JAZZ · 5 CRASH · 7 ASSEMBLYLINE · 9 SOLO · 10 HARLEM · 11 BOOM

Down 1 SPEAKEASY · 2 PROHIBITION · 3 CHARLESTON · 6 FLAPPER · 8 RADIO

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Jazz, Dance and Movies 30

  • Banjo Fretted instrument played by plucking or strumming
  • Blues Sad, soulful song style of singers such as Bessie Smith
  • Broadway New York street of theaters, where a 1923 show launched a dance craze
  • Charleston Dance at its peak in 1926 and 1927, with fast kicking steps, named for a Southern port
  • Cinema Movie theater; the grand new ones were like palaces
  • Cornet Brass instrument slightly smaller than a trumpet
  • Foxtrot Smooth ballroom dance of long, flowing steps, first seen in 1914
  • Harlem New York neighborhood at the heart of a Black arts movement
  • Hollywood Los Angeles neighborhood known as the center of American motion pictures
  • Improvise To invent a tune on the spot
  • Intertitle Card of printed words shown between scenes of a film without sound
  • Jazz The ___ Age: another name for the 1920s
  • Lindy ___ Hop: dance born in the Black communities of New York in 1928
  • Marathon Dance ___: contest to see which couple could keep moving the longest
  • Newsreel Reel of filmed current events that ran in theaters
  • Novel Book-length work of fiction
  • Orchestra Big group of players led by a conductor
  • Phonograph Machine that plays music from a spinning disc
  • Piano Keyboard instrument played live in movie houses before films could talk
  • Poem Lines of verse, rhymed or not
  • Record Flat disc with a groove that holds a song
  • Renaissance Rebirth: word in the name of the 1920s movement in Black music, art and writing
  • Rhythm Pattern of beats that dancers follow
  • Saxophone Reed instrument named for Adolphe Sax, who devised it
  • Scat Singing in made-up syllables in place of words
  • Silent ___ film: one with no voices on it
  • Solo Part played by one musician alone
  • Talkie Picture in which the actors can be heard; a hit one opened in the fall of 1927
  • Trombone Long brass instrument with a U-shaped sliding tube
  • Vaudeville Stage show of separate, unrelated acts on one bill

Fashion, Fads and Slang 32

  • Applesauce Fruit dish whose name was slang for nonsense
  • Art Deco Look of the decade's buildings, clothes and jewelry, named for a 1925 show in France
  • Baloney Slang for nonsense
  • Beads Long necklaces were strung with these and worn in many layers
  • Bob Short haircut, cut straight around the head at about jaw level
  • Cloche Close-fitting hat for women whose name is French for bell
  • Copacetic Slang for fine, just as it should be
  • Corset Stiff, laced undergarment that young women stopped wearing
  • Crossword Word puzzle whose first book came out in 1924
  • Dough Slang for money
  • Fad Craze that sweeps in fast and soon fades
  • Flagpole ___ sitting: stunt of staying for days on a small platform high in the air
  • Flapper Young woman of the 1920s with short hair and a knee-length skirt
  • Flivver Slang for a small, cheap car
  • Hemline Bottom edge of a skirt, which rose in the 1920s
  • Horsefeathers Barnyard word for nonsense
  • Jalopy Slang for an old, run-down car
  • Knees The bee's ___: dated phrase for something excellent
  • Makeup Lipstick, rouge and powder
  • Meow The cat's ___: dated phrase for a fancy, much-wanted thing
  • Nifty Slang for neat and clever
  • Pajamas The cat's ___: dated phrase for a fancy thing that everyone wants
  • Raccoon ___ coat: full-length fur worn by college men in the later 1920s
  • Ritzy Slang for elegant and showy
  • Scram Slang for leave at once
  • Shingle Kind of very short 1920s haircut that daring young women wore
  • Spiffy Slang for smartly dressed
  • Swanky Slang for fancy and expensive
  • Swell Old slang for excellent
  • Tomb Burial place of an Egyptian king, the great find of 1922
  • Tut Short name of the boy pharaoh who was the talk of 1922
  • Whoopee Loud shout of joy at a party

Machines and Money 31

  • Advertising Paid messages that urge people to buy; it became a mass industry
  • Airplane Winged craft that needs a runway
  • Appliance Electric machine for the home, such as a toaster or an iron
  • Assembly line Row of work stops where each adds one part to a moving product
  • Automobile Car, the machine whose rise changed where people could live and go
  • Aviation Flying, which grew into a business
  • Boom Time of fast business growth
  • Broadcast To send a program out over the air
  • Broker Person who buys and sells shares for others
  • Bull ___ market: time when share prices keep rising
  • Consumer Shopper, in the language of business
  • Conveyor ___ belt: moving band that carried the work along in a plant
  • Crash The great fall of share prices on Wall Street in 1929
  • Credit Buying now and paying later
  • Depression The Great ___: the hard times that followed the decade
  • Electricity What flows through the wires of a house
  • Factory Plant full of machines and the people who run them
  • Installment One of the regular payments on something bought over time
  • Margin Buying on ___: paying for shares with borrowed money, a cause of the 1929 collapse
  • Penicillin Germ-killing substance that a Scottish biologist discovered in 1928
  • Pittsburgh Pennsylvania city of KDKA, on the air with election returns in November 1920
  • Prosperity Good times, with money to spend
  • Radio Home set that brought news and music through the air
  • Route U.S. ___ 66: highway set up in 1926 from Chicago to California
  • Skyscraper Very tall building; New York and Chicago raced to raise them
  • Speculation Risky buying in the hope of a fast profit
  • Station Place that sends out programs, known by call letters such as KDKA
  • Stock Piece of a company that an investor can own
  • Telephone It carries voices by wire; millions of homes gained one
  • Thursday Black ___: October 24, 1929
  • Tuesday Black ___: October 29, 1929

Laws and Headlines 27

  • Atlantic Ocean first flown nonstop by one flier alone, in May 1927
  • Ballot Slip dropped in a box on election day
  • Bootlegging The illegal making and moving of liquor
  • Channel English ___: water first swum by a woman in August 1926
  • Eighteenth Number of the amendment that banned alcohol, the only one ever undone by a later one
  • Evolution What a Southern state law of the time forbade public schools to teach
  • Headline Bold words above a newspaper story
  • Migration The Great ___: movement of Black Americans out of the rural South
  • Nineteenth Number of the amendment that gave women the vote
  • Normalcy What the winner of the 1920 election promised a return to
  • Paris City at the end of a famous 33-hour flight in 1927
  • Picket To stand in protest with signs, as women did for voting rights
  • Postwar Coming after the fighting, as the decade came after World War I
  • Prohibition The dry years, 1920 to 1933, when liquor could not legally be made or sold
  • Quota Limit on how many newcomers each nation could send, set by a 1924 law
  • Ratify To vote a formal yes, as a 36th state did in August 1920
  • Repeal To cancel a law, as was done to the alcohol ban in 1933
  • Rushmore Mount ___: South Dakota carving begun in 1927
  • Scopes High school teacher put on trial in July 1925 over a science lesson
  • Smuggler One who sneaks banned goods across a border
  • Speakeasy Secret club that sold banned drinks
  • Suffrage Cause of the women who marched and lobbied until 1920
  • Teapot ___ Dome: scandal over bribes for leases on government oil reserves
  • Temperance ___ societies: groups that urged people to give up drinking
  • Tennessee In August 1920 it became the 36th state to approve votes for women
  • Twenties The Roaring ___: nickname of the decade
  • Volstead ___ Act: law that carried out the ban on alcohol

People of the Decade 22

  • Agent Federal officer sent to enforce the alcohol ban
  • Armstrong Louis ___: horn player and singer called Satchmo
  • Aviator Formal word for an aircraft flier
  • Carter Howard ___: leader of the dig that found a pharaoh's burial place in 1922
  • Coolidge Leader of the country from 1923 to 1929, known as a man of few words
  • Earhart Flier who in 1928 became the first woman to cross an ocean by air, as a passenger
  • Ederle Gertrude ___: swimmer the press called Queen of the Waves
  • Ellington Duke ___: bandleader and composer in New York from the mid-1920s
  • Farmer Grower of wheat, corn or cotton
  • Fitzgerald F. Scott ___: novelist of the flamboyance and excess of the age
  • Gangster Member of a crime ring that grew rich on banned liquor
  • Harding Leader of the country from 1921 until his death in 1923
  • Hoover He was sworn in as leader of the country in March 1929
  • Hughes Langston ___: poet and a leader of the Black arts movement in New York
  • Hurston Zora Neale ___: writer and folklorist of the Black arts movement in New York
  • Immigrant One who arrives to settle in a country not their own
  • Inventor Person who thinks up a new machine
  • Lindbergh Flier of the Spirit of St. Louis, called the Lone Eagle
  • Reformer Person who works to change society for the better
  • Ruth Babe ___: slugger who hit 60 home runs in 1927
  • Senator The 1920 winner was the first sitting one elected to the White House
  • Suffragist Campaigner for the right of women to vote

How this list was compiled: Clues written for this site about the United States in the 1920s, in five sets: jazz, dance and movies; fashion, fads and slang; machines and money; laws and headlines; people of the decade. Dates and facts were read in English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA 4.0) and, for Prohibition and the 19th Amendment, on two National Archives pages (archives.gov); slang and word meanings were read in Wiktionary, in October 2026. No living person is named. Licence: own work

How it works

This free printable crossword puzzle for the Roaring 20's is a vocabulary crossword for a United States history unit on the 1920s. The first puzzle has 12 key words, among them Jazz, Flapper, Radio, Assembly line and Suffrage.

Read the full guide

Five sets after the key words

Jazz, Dance and Movies has Charleston, Talkie and Vaudeville. Fashion, Fads and Slang has Cloche, Flagpole and Horsefeathers. Machines and Money has Conveyor, Margin and Skyscraper. Laws and Headlines has Volstead, Quota and Normalcy. People of the Decade has Coolidge, Earhart and Hurston.

Dates in the clues

A clue gives the date where the date is the point: election returns on the radio in November 1920, votes for women in August 1920, a trial over a science lesson in July 1925, the solo flight to Paris in May 1927 and Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929.

  • Print Fashion, Fads and Slang as a warm-up: Knees, Pajamas and Meow finish three phrases of the decade.

Questions and answers

Is the Roaring 20's crossword puzzle free to print with an answer key?

Yes, with no sign-up. The answer key prints last, on a sheet of its own, so the puzzle goes to the class and the key stays with you.

What grade is the Roaring Twenties crossword for?

Key 1920s Words suits grades 5 to 8. The five themed sets, with answers such as Volstead, Margin and Normalcy, suit grades 8 to 11. These bands are our judgment, not a published standard.

Why were the 1920s called the Roaring Twenties?

The name fits a decade of economic prosperity and fast cultural change after World War I, when jazz, radio, films and the automobile spread widely. The decade is also called the Jazz Age. Twenties is an answer in Laws and Headlines.

When did Prohibition start and end?

The national ban on making, moving and selling alcoholic drinks ran from 1920 to 1933. The Eighteenth Amendment set it up and the Twenty-first repealed it in December 1933. Prohibition, Eighteenth and Repeal are answers in Laws and Headlines.

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