Use the arrow keys to move between letters. Press Enter or Space on the first letter of a word, then again on the last letter. Press Escape to cancel.
A few of the words
- SEARS
- The Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, nicknamed the 'wish book', was first issued in 1888 and by the early 1900s ran to over a thousand pages, offering everything from corsets to kit houses.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- WISHBOOK
- The term 'wish book' was used affectionately for the thick seasonal catalogs that children and adults alike would page through, circling items they hoped to one day own.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- LAYAWAY
- Many catalog companies offered layaway plans, letting customers spread payments over weeks, a practical kindness for farm families living between harvests.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
- RURAL
- Rural Free Delivery, established by the U.S. Post Office in 1896, made mail-order shopping genuinely possible for millions of Americans living outside town limits.Find this word in the grid to read its note.
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mail-order catalog word search
The Mail-Order Catalog: a free large-print word search
Mail-order catalog word search, free and large-print. Dog-eared pages, penciled circles, and the thrill of a package thudding onto the porch weeks later.
About The Mail-Order Catalog
The great mail-order catalogs were a lifeline to households far from any department store, thick, illustrated volumes that arrived each season like a visit from the wider world. Shoppers would spend evenings at the kitchen table, pencil in hand, circling boots and bolts of fabric, then carefully filling out the order form in block letters. Weeks later, a brown-paper package tied with twine and stamped all over would appear at the rural route mailbox, carrying something that had only ever existed, until that moment, as a small black-and-white picture on a printed page.
How to play
- 1Find a word.Tap its first letter, then tap along to its last. The trail fills in and finishes itself when it spells a word. Or press the first letter and drag.
- 2Words run in straight lines.Across and down, and on the harder difficulties diagonally and backwards.
- 3It marks itself.Each word you find takes on its own soft colour on the grid and is crossed off the list.
- 4Choose a difficulty.Relaxed, Classic or Challenging set those directions and how much the word list helps, never the grid size. Tap the A buttons at the top to enlarge the letters, or pinch the grid.

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