Thanksgiving Word Search

Did you know?

turkey

The bird got its name by mistake: traders sold African guinea fowl through Turkey, and the label stuck to the American bird.

cranberry

Ripe cranberries hold four tiny air pockets, so they bounce when dropped and float when bogs are flooded for harvest.

pilgrim

The Plymouth settlers did not call themselves Pilgrims; that name caught on roughly two centuries later, around the year 1800.

stuffing

Cooks who dislike the word stuffing often say dressing instead, a polite swap that spread across the American South.

grateful

Studies of gratitude journals suggest that people who regularly write down thanks report sleeping better and feeling more hopeful.

thankful

The word thank shares an ancient root with think; to thank someone once meant to keep them in mind.

wishbone

The custom of two people snapping a bird's forked bone for luck dates back to the ancient Etruscans and Romans.

leftovers

The turkey sandwich is so beloved that the day after Thanksgiving sees one of the year's busiest stretches for home kitchens.

blessing

The word blessing comes from an Old English term for marking with blood, later softened to mean divine favor.

mayflower

The Mayflower was a cargo ship built to carry wine and goods, never designed to ferry families across an ocean.

autumn

Americans say fall and Britons say autumn, but both words were once used freely on both sides of the Atlantic.

dinner

Dinner once meant the day's first big meal, eaten at midday, which is why a noon feast can still be Thanksgiving dinner.

plymouth

The Plymouth colonists borrowed the name from the English port town they had sailed away from months earlier.

bountiful

Bountiful shares a root with bounty and bonus, all tracing back to the Latin word bonus, meaning good.

feather

Wild turkeys can have over five thousand feathers, and the males fan their tail feathers wide to attract a mate.

In their words