turquoiseFind to reveal
Turquoise takes its name from French for 'Turkish,' because the blue-green stone first reached Europe through trade routes crossing Turkey.
Colors Word Search
Find familiar words. Discover something unexpected.
Puzzle10 words · 11×11 grid · Medium · Answer key included
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🎉 Solved — all 10 words found!
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Find a puzzle word to reveal its fact.
0 of 10 facts revealed
burgundyFind to reveal
Burgundy is named after a wine region in France, its deep red matching the color of the reds poured there.
charcoalFind to reveal
Chauvet Cave artists blended charcoal shading and scratched fine lines into animal pictures, using sophisticated techniques thousands of years before modern studios.
crimsonFind to reveal
Some brilliant red dyes come from cochineal insects living on cacti, turning tiny creatures into color for cloth and food.
magentaFind to reveal
Magenta was named after an 1859 battle in Italy, just as chemists unveiled the bright new dye that season.
emeraldFind to reveal
An emerald's green can come from tiny traces of chromium, the same element that helps make a ruby red.
scarletFind to reveal
Scarlet once named a fine cloth rather than a specific red; the fabric's name eventually became the color's name.
purpleFind to reveal
Unlike violet, purple has no single wavelength in a rainbow; your brain blends signals from opposite ends of the spectrum.
orangeFind to reveal
Carrots were once mostly purple or white; orange types grew dominant in the Netherlands and only later got tied to Dutch royalty.
greenFind to reveal
Japan's green traffic signals are commonly called blue, carrying an older color vocabulary onto modern roads where English speakers would say green.
True stories · Corvallis, Oregon
A new blue by accident
In 2009, in a lab at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, a chemistry team led by Mas Subramanian was heating minerals to test electronics materials. A graduate student pulled a batch from a furnace at about 1,200 degrees Celsius and found it had turned a brilliant, vivid blue. The accident became YInMn blue, named for its yttrium, indium, and manganese, the first new inorganic blue pigment discovered in about 200 years. It has shown strong resistance to fading and heat, and even reflects warmth-carrying rays. The last new blue, cobalt, dated to 1802. After years of safety testing, the color was approved for artists and now sells in tubes to painters worldwide.
Color is a power which directly influences the soul.
Wassily Kandinsky
Trivia
How many colors did Isaac Newton name in the rainbow when he split sunlight with a prism?
Seven (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).
What three colors of light combine to make white light on a screen?
Red, green, and blue.
Which costly dye made from sea snails was associated with Roman imperial power?
Tyrian purple.
Among men of Northern European ancestry, roughly what share have red-green color blindness: 1 in 12, 1 in 100, or 1 in 1000?
About 1 in 12.
What inherited condition affects production or distribution of the pigment melanin?
Albinism.
Trivia · 1 / 5
How many colors did Isaac Newton name in the rainbow when he split sunlight with a prism?
Seven (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).
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Play →or printTrue stories · Colonsay, Scotland
The dress that split the internet
In 2015, a mother photographed a lace dress at an outlet in England before her daughter's wedding on the Scottish island of Colonsay. Online, the picture sparked a worldwide argument: some people swore the dress was blue and black, others were certain it was white and gold. Neither side could believe the other. Scientists explained that our brains guess what light is falling on an object and quietly subtract it, and people guessed differently about the washed-out lighting. The dress itself was really blue and black. The harmless puzzle showed millions of people that color lives partly in the mind, not only in the world.
Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.
Oscar Wilde
Find green, purple and orange among the words hidden in this puzzle. Play free online or print the puzzle with its answer key.
Is this colors word search free to print?
This colors word search is a free printable puzzle with 10 hidden words in an 11×11 grid. Find words like TURQUOISE, BURGUNDY, CHARCOAL hidden across, down, and diagonally. You can play it right here in your browser — tap the first and last letter of a word — or download it as a printable PDF with the full answer key on page two. It's free for personal and classroom use, so teachers can print copies for a whole class with no sign-up and no account. Word searches like this one are a proven way to build vocabulary, spelling, and word-shape recognition, which is why they're a favourite with ESL learners, elementary classrooms, and anyone who likes a quiet puzzle with their coffee.
Print this Colors word search
Sources: YInMn Blue (Oregon State University) · The dress (Wikipedia)
Word list, facts & trivia researched and compiled by Sam Letterman — spotted a mistake? Tell us and we’ll fix it.