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Household chores Word Search

This household chores word search hides words like sweep, laundry, vacuum to find. Play it free online or print the PDF with the answer key, a handy household chores vocabulary activity.

10 words · 11×11 grid · Medium · Answer key included · Free printable PDF

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Tap the first and last letter of a word — or use arrow keys and Enter. Dragging works too.

LAUNDRY
DUSTING
MOPPING
IRONING
VACUUM
SPONGE
BUCKET
SWEEP
SCRUB
BROOM

🎉 Solved — all 10 words found!

True stories

The cleaner that had to wait at the curb

London, England

In London, England, in 1901, an engineer named Hubert Cecil Booth went to the Empire Music Hall to watch a new cleaning machine. It blew air at the floor and hoped the dust would land in a bag. Booth thought the whole idea was pointed the wrong way. Pull the dirt in, he argued, and trap it in a filter, and the room would actually be clean. The inventor on stage told him suction was impossible. Booth patented his suction cleaner that same year. His petrol engine was far too big to carry indoors, so it waited at the curb while operators fed long hoses through the windows of the house.

A van full of washing machines

Brisbane, Australia

In Brisbane, Australia, two friends decided that clean clothes were a good place to start. In 2014 Nic Marchesi and Lucas Patchett fitted an old van with washing machines and dryers, then drove it to the places where people sleeping rough gathered. The washing was free. So were the six orange chairs they set out beside the van, and the founders came to say those mattered as much as the laundry did. While a load spun, people sat down and talked. The service they called Orange Sky spread across Australia and New Zealand, and on Australia Day in 2016 the pair were named joint Young Australians of the Year.

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Did you know?

sweep: Curling players sweep ice to steer sliding stones, using an ordinary cleaning motion to make a heavy object travel farther or straighter.
laundry: Ancient Roman laundry workers used urine as a cleaning ingredient, drawing on its ammonia long before bottled detergents existed.
vacuum: Hubert Cecil Booth patented a powered vacuum in 1901; his petrol machine was so big it stayed in the street.
dusting: Scientists have found tiny meteorites among rooftop dust, turning an ordinary gutter into a collection point for material from space.
mopping: Some robot mops navigate by reading invisible light patterns on the ceiling, looking upward to find their way across a floor.
ironing: Some old irons held burning charcoal inside hollow metal bodies, turning ironing into a job done with a small portable furnace.
scrub: Sailors used sandstone blocks to scrub wooden decks, calling the large stones Bibles and the smaller ones prayer books.
broom: The sweeping broom is named after a shrub; people once tied its slender twigs to a handle to make one.
sponge: A natural cleaning sponge began as a sea animal, whose dried skeleton can soak up water without its original living cells.
bucket: Buckets once held water ready for fighting fires. Some had rounded bottoms so nobody could borrow them for mopping.
dustpan: Even crumbs got fancy treatment: silver-plated tabletop dustpans called silent butlers collected the mess after meals.
recycling: Fleece jackets can be made from recycled plastic drink bottles, giving a familiar rigid container a second life as soft clothing.
detergent: A detergent molecule has two ends, one that grips water and one that grips grease, which is how stains let go.
clothesline: Frozen laundry can still dry outdoors in subzero weather, because ice can turn directly into vapor without first melting into liquid.
tidying: Calling someone tidy once meant they were brave or valiant. It was a compliment about courage, not their spotless bedroom.

Trivia

Who patented a powered vacuum cleaner in 1901, a petrol machine nicknamed Puffing Billy?
Hubert Cecil Booth.
The sweeping tool called a broom takes its name from what kind of plant?
A shrub, also called broom.
Which two common cleaning products must never be mixed, because together they give off toxic chloramine gases?
Bleach and ammonia.
The American word chore is a variant of which older English word, meaning a turn of work?
Char, as in charwoman.
Which religious community at Watervliet, New York, made its name with flat brooms that swept a wider path?
The Shakers.

Trivia · 1 / 5

Who patented a powered vacuum cleaner in 1901, a petrol machine nicknamed Puffing Billy?

Hubert Cecil Booth.

In their words

Life's too short to stuff a mushroom.
Shirley Conran, Superwoman (1975)

There was no need to do any housework at all. After four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

Is this household chores word search free to print?

This household chores word search is a free printable puzzle with 10 hidden words in an 11×11 grid. Find words like LAUNDRY, DUSTING, MOPPING 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.

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