50 Riddles with Answers, from Easy to Impossible
A good riddle is fair. The answer is hiding in plain sight, and when you hear it you groan because you should have seen it. Below are 50 of them, sorted into four levels. Each answer is right under its riddle, so cover the screen with your hand if you want to try first.
They work for a car trip, a classroom warm-up or a table of friends who think they are clever.
Easy riddles with answers
Good for kids and for warming up.
1. What has to be broken before you can use it? An egg.
2. What has hands but cannot clap? A clock.
3. What gets wetter the more it dries? A towel.
4. What has a neck but no head? A bottle.
5. What has many keys but cannot open a single lock? A piano.
6. What goes up but never comes down? Your age.
7. What has one eye but cannot see? A needle.
8. What can you catch but not throw? A cold.
9. What has legs but does not walk? A table.
10. What is full of holes but still holds water? A sponge.
11. What runs all around a backyard but never moves? A fence.
12. What kind of band never plays music? A rubber band.
Medium riddles
These need a second read.
13. The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it? Darkness.
14. I am taken from a mine and shut up in a wooden case, from which I am never released, and yet I am used by almost everyone. What am I? Pencil lead (graphite).
15. What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it? Short.
16. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner? A stamp.
17. If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you no longer have me. What am I? A secret.
18. What has cities, but no houses; forests, but no trees; and water, but no fish? A map.
19. What building has the most stories? A library.
20. What can fill a room but takes up no space? Light.
21. What belongs to you, but other people use it more than you do? Your name.
22. What has a head and a tail but no body? A coin.
23. Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I? A ton.
24. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years? The letter M.
Hard riddles with answers
Adults get stuck on these too.
25. A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him. Right after, they enjoy a lovely dinner. How? She is a photographer. She took his picture, developed it in a tray of water and hung it up to dry.
26. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I? An echo.
27. The person who makes it sells it. The person who buys it never uses it. The person who uses it never knows they are using it. What is it? A coffin.
28. What disappears as soon as you say its name? Silence.
29. A girl has as many brothers as sisters, but each brother has only half as many brothers as sisters. How many brothers and sisters are in the family? Three brothers and four sisters.
30. You see a boat filled with people. It has not sunk, but when you look again you do not see a single person on the boat. Why? All the people on board are married.
31. A rooster lays an egg on the very top of a slanted roof. Which side does the egg roll down? Neither. Roosters do not lay eggs.
32. What five-letter word has one left when two letters are removed? Stone. Take away S and T and you have "one".
33. Two fathers and two sons go fishing. Each catches one fish, but they bring home only three. How? There are only three people: a grandfather, his son and his grandson.
34. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world? Mount Everest. It was the highest whether anyone had measured it or not.
35. How many times can you subtract 10 from 100? Once. After that you are subtracting from 90.
36. A man was outside in the rain for an hour with no umbrella and no hat. Not a single hair on his head got wet. How? He is bald.
37. What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a bed but never sleeps? A river.
Impossible riddles
The ones to save for the person who solved everything else.
38. What has 13 hearts but no other organs? A deck of cards.
39. A man looks at a portrait and says, "Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man's father is my father's son." Who is in the portrait? His son. "My father's son" is the man himself, so the portrait shows his son.
40. What English word has three consecutive double letters? Bookkeeper (oo, kk, ee).
41. You are in a race and you pass the person in second place. What place are you in now? Second. You took their place, not first.
42. A clerk at a butcher shop is 5 feet 10 inches tall and wears size 13 shoes. What does he weigh? Meat.
43. I have keys but no locks, space but no room, and you can enter but cannot go inside. What am I? A keyboard.
44. There is a word in the English language in which the first two letters signify a male, the first three a female, the first four a great man and the whole a great woman. What is it? Heroine (he, her, hero, heroine).
45. A truck driver is going the wrong way down a one-way street. A police officer sees him but does nothing. Why? The truck driver is walking.
46. What is always in front of you but cannot be seen? The future.
47. If you drop a yellow hat in the Red Sea, what does it become? Wet.
48. Which month has 28 days? All of them.
49. Mary's father has five daughters: Nana, Nene, Nini, Nono. What is the fifth daughter's name? Mary.
50. Three doors. Behind one is a safe way out. Two guards stand in front of them. One always tells the truth and one always lies, and you do not know which is which. You may ask one guard one question. What do you ask? Point at any door and ask: "If I asked the other guard whether this door is safe, what would he say?" Then do the opposite of the answer. Both guards will give the same wrong answer, so flipping it gives you the truth.
Why riddles work
Almost every riddle above uses one of three tricks. Learn them and you will solve new ones faster.
- A word with two meanings. Hands on a clock, keys on a piano, a bed of a river. The riddle describes the second meaning as if it were the first.
- A missing assumption. The rooster, the bald man, the truck driver who is walking. The riddle lets you fill in a detail that was never said.
- Reading the question literally. "Which month has 28 days" and "how many times can you subtract 10" are answered by what the words say, not what you expect them to mean.
Play riddles as games
If the liar and truth-teller riddle (number 50) was your favorite, Verity or Falsity is built around it. Each level has look-alike twins in front of doors: one always lies, one always tells the truth. You read what they say, work out who is lying and pick the safe door. Five new riddles every day.
For the trick-question kind, Meme Brain has 45 riddles where the answer is never where you look: drag the sun, tap the question itself, scroll somewhere you were not told to. And if you prefer pure logic with exactly one solution, Purrzzle is a daily grid puzzle with cats.
