House Word Search

Did you know?

wall

China's Great Wall is not one wall but many; together its branches stretch more than 13,000 miles across the land.

kitchen

The word kitchen traces back to the Latin coquere, to cook, the same root that gives us the word cook itself.

bathroom

Powder my nose became a polite way to mean the bathroom only after compact mirrors and makeup spread in the early 1900s.

bedroom

Centuries ago, many Europeans slept twice each night, waking near midnight to talk or pray before a second sleep.

chimney

The tallest brick chimney ever built, a copper smelter stack in Anaconda, Montana, rises about 555 feet, taller than most skyscrapers.

ceiling

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling mostly standing, not lying down, craning his neck back for about four years.

balcony

Juliet never had a balcony; the word reached English only around 1618, after Shakespeare died, so he wrote a window scene.

basement

In flood-prone New Orleans, homes rarely have basements because the water table sits so high that digging down quickly hits water.

staircase

A spiral staircase in a medieval castle usually curled clockwise, giving a right-handed defender room to swing his sword downward.

fireplace

A traditional fireplace sends most of its heat straight up the chimney, so open hearths warm a room far less than stoves.

hallway

The word hallway comes from hall, which once meant the single large room where an entire medieval household lived, ate, and slept.

radiator

Cast-iron radiators heat a room mostly by warming the air that rises past them, not by radiating, despite their name.

banister

The word banister is a worn-down form of baluster, the little post whose shape was named after the pomegranate flower.

cupboard

A cupboard once meant exactly what it says: a board, or open shelf, on which cups and dishes were proudly displayed.

corridor

The word corridor first described a covered passage for running soldiers, from an Italian term meaning a place for running.

In their words