Riddles: 132 Riddles With Answers, Easy to Hard

These riddles come with answers and run from easy one-liners to hard head-scratchers: 132 in all, sorted by type for kids, teens and adults.

A good riddle is a small, fair trick: every clue is true, and the answer feels obvious the moment you hear it. Each answer sits in the right-hand column, so you can cover it with a hand.

Every riddle is clean, each was solved again before publishing to check that the answer follows from the clues, and none repeats our riddles for kids page.

Key Takeaways

132 riddles with answers in 15 groups, from easy one-liners to hard and tricky ones.
Answers sit in the right-hand column: cover them before you read aloud.
Most riddles turn on a double meaning, a too-literal reading or a hidden assumption.
The riddle of the Sphinx and the Exeter Book show how old the game is.
One riddle a day at dinner or in the car is plenty. Give hints freely.

Table of Contents

Riddles With Answers at a Glance

Quick Answer

The best riddles are short, fair and satisfying to solve. This page has 132 riddles with answers, from easy and funny to hard and tricky, with word, math and logic sets and famous riddles from history.

Read the left column aloud, give everyone a fair think, then uncover the right column. For younger players, see our riddles for kids. For longer puzzles, see brain teasers for kids.

Riddle	Answer
What has teeth and runs through your hair but never bites?	A comb.
What has four legs, never walks and gets set for dinner?	A table.
What goes up when the rain comes down?	An umbrella.
What gains a new ring every year but has no fingers?	A tree.
What has a head and a tail but no body?	A coin.
What can you hold in your left hand but never in your right?	Your right hand (or right elbow).
What gets bigger the more you take away from it?	A hole.
What has a spine and many words but never speaks?	A book.
What is always in front of you but can never be seen?	The future.
What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?	Silence.
What kind of band stretches but never plays music?	A rubber band.
What goes through a door but never comes in or goes out?	A keyhole.

Short riddles, one line each.

Easy Riddles and Funny Riddles

Easy riddles describe an everyday object in a sideways way: the right warm-up for mixed ages.

Riddle	Answer
What has numbers on every page and gets flipped once a month?	A wall calendar.
What has a tongue but never talks and goes where your foot goes?	A shoe.
What kind of coat can only be put on wet?	A coat of paint.
What has a zipper for a mouth and rides on your back?	A backpack.
What is yours, though other people use it more than you do?	Your name.
What is easy to get into but hard to get out of?	Trouble.
What has a handle and a spout and whistles when it gets hot?	A tea kettle.
What loses its head each morning and gets it back at night?	A pillow.
What stays cool and lights up only when you open its door?	A refrigerator.
What do you open every morning without using your hands?	Your eyes.

Easy riddles.

Funny riddles are close cousins of jokes, with a pun for an answer. If the groans are welcome, keep going with our funny jokes.

Riddle	Answer
What two things can you never eat for breakfast?	Lunch and dinner.
What has a hundred legs and still cannot walk?	Fifty pairs of pants.
What goes “zzub, zzub”?	A bee flying backward.
What can you serve over and over but never eat?	A tennis ball.
What flies all day but never leaves its pole?	A flag.
What has one horn and gives milk?	A milk truck.
In which month do people sleep the least?	February. It has the fewest nights.
What kind of dog never barks and comes in a bun?	A hot dog.

Funny riddles.

What Am I Riddles

A what am I riddle speaks in the first person. Pause after each clue, because half the fun is guessing early.

Riddle	Answer
I have many buttons but no shirt, and I hide in the couch. What am I?	A TV remote.
The more of me there is, the less you see. What am I?	Darkness.
I have cities with no houses and rivers with no water. What am I?	A map.
I shrink each time I am sharpened, and I leave a gray trail. What am I?	A pencil.
I am long at sunrise, short at noon and gone in the dark. What am I?	Your shadow.
I weigh nothing, yet nobody can hold me for an hour. What am I?	Your breath.
I am round one night, shrink to a sliver and grow back within a month. What am I?	The moon.
I come once a year and always bring one more candle. What am I?	Your birthday.
My teeth lock together when you pull my tab. What am I?	A zipper.
I fall and climb the same string all day and rest in your hand. What am I?	A yo-yo.
You can crack me, tell me, play me and take me. What am I?	A joke.
My needle never sews. It only points north. What am I?	A compass.
I never read a word, yet I always know where you stopped. What am I?	A bookmark.
I come in pairs, but one of me always vanishes in the laundry. What am I?	A sock.
The more hands I wash, the smaller I get. What am I?	A bar of soap.

What am I riddles.

Hard Riddles and Tricky Riddles

Hard riddles hide a plain answer behind a figure of speech. Allow a full minute before the first hint.

Riddle	Answer
Turn me one way and nobody gets in. Turn me back and anyone can. What am I?	A key.
What must you give before you can keep it?	Your word.
What breaks but never falls, and what falls but never breaks?	Day breaks and night falls.
What runs through towns and over hills but never moves?	A road.
What has 13 hearts but no lungs and no stomach?	A deck of cards.
What is always on its way but never arrives?	Tomorrow.
What old invention lets you look straight through a wall?	A window.
What turns everything around without moving at all?	A mirror.
What gets sharper the more you use it?	Your mind.

Hard riddles.

In tricky riddles, the trick is in the wording. Read each one exactly as written, once.

Riddle	Answer
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain on Earth?	Mount Everest, measured or not.
How far can a dog run into the woods?	Halfway. After that it is running out.
An electric train heads north and the wind blows east. Which way does the smoke blow?	Nowhere. Electric trains make no smoke.
In a race, you pass the runner in second place. What place are you in now?	Second place.
In a dark cabin you have one match, a candle and a lantern. What do you light first?	The match.
A rider arrives on Friday, stays three nights and leaves on Friday. How?	The horse is named Friday.
A red house is made of red bricks. What is a greenhouse made of?	Glass.
Leo’s mother has three children. Two are named Monday and Tuesday. Who is the third?	Leo.

Tricky riddles.

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Word Riddles and Math Riddles

Word and letter riddles are about spelling, so they work best when the solver can picture the word.

Riddle	Answer
What appears once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in a thousand years?	The letter M.
Which five-letter word sounds the same after you remove four of its letters?	Queue.
What starts with E, ends with E and usually holds one letter?	An envelope.
What starts with T, ends with T and has T in it?	A teapot.
Which three-syllable word holds all 26 letters?	Alphabet.
Where does today come before yesterday?	In a dictionary.
Which seven-letter word has hundreds of letters in it?	Mailbox.
What do Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have that Venus and Neptune lack?	The letter R.
I house horses. Drop my first letter and you can eat on me. What word am I?	Stable, then table.

Word and letter riddles.

Every math riddle was recomputed, and the working is in the answer cell.

Riddle	Answer
You have three cookies and eat one every half hour. How long do they last?	One hour: at 0, 30 and 60 minutes.
Divide 30 by one half and add 10. What do you get?	70. Dividing by one half gives 60, plus 10.
When Maya was 6, her brother was half her age. Maya is 40 now. How old is he?	37. He is always 3 years younger.
How many times can you subtract 5 from 25?	Once. After that you are subtracting from 20.
Lily pads double every day and cover the pond on day 30. When was it half covered?	Day 29. One more doubling fills it.
Two coins make 30 cents, and one is not a nickel. What are they?	A quarter and a nickel. The quarter is not a nickel.
Which number has its letters in alphabetical order when spelled out?	Forty: F, O, R, T, Y.

Math and number riddles.

Logic Riddles, Riddles for Adults and Riddles for Teens

These logic riddles are short on purpose: one clean step of reasoning each.

Riddle	Answer
A dark drawer holds red socks and blue socks. How many must you pull out to be sure of a matching pair?	Three. The third must match one of the first two.
The day before yesterday was Monday. What day is tomorrow?	Thursday. Today is Wednesday.
What letter comes next: O, T, T, F, F, S, S?	E, for eight: the first letters of one, two, three.
A family has seven children, and half of them are boys. How?	All seven are boys, the other half included.

Short logic riddles.

The riddles for adults are still clean. They lean on harder vocabulary, not grown-up themes.

Riddle	Answer
What is bought by the yard and worn by the foot?	Carpet.
Who shaves many times a day and still has a beard?	A barber.
What has a foot on each end and one in the middle?	A yardstick.
What has a balance but is no gymnast, and earns interest but has no hobbies?	A bank account.
What can you spend, save and waste but never buy more of?	Time.
Which small boat reads the same from bow to stern and stern to bow?	A kayak.

Riddles for adults.

For teens, start with the screens they already carry, then try our jokes for middle schoolers.

Riddle	Answer
What tastes better than it smells?	Your tongue.
What has a home screen, a lock and wallpaper, yet fits in your pocket?	A smartphone.
What has windows without glass and tabs without folders?	A web browser.
What kind of cloud never rains but holds all your photos?	Cloud storage.
What has four eyes but cannot see?	Mississippi. It has four letter I’s.
What sits at the center of gravity?	The letter V.

Riddles for teens.

Nature, Animal and Food Riddles

Good for a walk, a picnic or the kitchen while dinner cooks.

Riddle	Answer
What has a mouth but never eats and a bed but never sleeps?	A river.
What has thousands of needles but never sews, and stays green all winter?	A pine tree.
What kind of bow can never be tied and only appears after rain?	A rainbow.
What must be buried before it can rise?	A seed.
Who goes to sleep every night with shoes on?	A horse.
What carries its house on its back and leaves a silver trail?	A snail.
Which bird asks the same one-word question all night?	An owl. It keeps asking “Who?”
What starts life with a tail and no legs and ends it with legs and no tail?	A frog.
What rises each morning without a bed and sets each evening without a table?	The sun.

Nature and animal riddles.

Riddle	Answer
What kind of cup has frosting on top and cannot hold a drink?	A cupcake.
What stands on one leg with its heart in its head?	A cabbage.
What stays hot however long it sits in the refrigerator?	A chili pepper.
What starts hard and golden, then jumps, puffs up and turns white?	Popcorn.
What never cries when you take off its skin, though you might?	An onion.
What is round, arrives in a square box and gets eaten in triangles?	A pizza.
Which pair sits at every meal, one white and one black, and gets shaken?	Salt and pepper.
Which sweet food is made by thousands of workers who live with their queen?	Honey.
What kind of knot comes sprinkled with salt and tastes best warm?	A pretzel.

Food riddles.

Famous Riddles From History

Britannica Kids says riddles have been popular since ancient times. The best known is the riddle of the Sphinx, first in this table. In the Greek myth, the Sphinx waited near the city of Thebes with this question, and Oedipus answered it after many others had failed.

Riddle	Answer
What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three at night?	A human: a baby crawls, an adult walks, an elder uses a cane.
What slips in at every window and door crack and circles the house without leaving a track?	The wind.
When is a door not a door?	When it is ajar.
What is black and white and read all over?	A newspaper.
What kind of fruit grows at an electric power plant?	Currants (say it aloud: currents).
From the Middle Ages: what never was and never will be?	A mouse’s nest in a cat’s ear.
A thief in the dark swallowed a fine speech and was no wiser. What is it?	A bookworm: the larva of a book moth.
A wonder happened on the waves: water turned to bone. What is it?	Ice, probably an iceberg.
Four wonders travel together and leave dark tracks, and one dives under the waves. What are they?	Three fingers and a quill pen, writing.
What creature has one eye, two ears, two feet and twelve hundred heads?	A one-eyed garlic seller.

Famous classic riddles, retold in our own words.

The first six are retold from Britannica Kids. The last four come from the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry written in the late tenth century and still kept in the cathedral library at Exeter. The University of Oxford’s Faculty of English, whose answers we give, says it includes about a hundred riddles.

A Short Round of Riddles for Kids

Little kids do best with riddles about things they can see and touch. Here are ten new ones. Dozens more, sorted by age, are on our riddles for kids page, and trivia for kids makes a good second round.

Riddle	Answer
What has a carrot nose and shrinks on sunny days?	A snowman.
What flies high on windy days, but only while you hold its string?	A kite.
What has a trunk but no suitcase and huge ears but no earrings?	An elephant.
What starts with many legs, takes a long nap and wakes up with wings?	A butterfly.
What has eight legs and builds its own sticky net?	A spider.
Which fruit has the same name as its color?	An orange.
Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?	Neither. A pound is a pound.
What has bristles, is not a broom and visits your teeth twice a day?	A toothbrush.
What is made of soap and air and pops when touched?	A bubble.
What shows up after rain, is fun to jump in and dries in the sun?	A puddle.

Riddles for kids.

How to Solve a Riddle and Write Your Own

Most riddles work in one of three ways. Check for each in turn:

Look for the double meaning: one word is doing two jobs. Teeth belong to mouths and to combs.
Try the literal reading: take every word at face value. If the train is electric, there is no smoke.
Find the hidden assumption: you never asked what the horse was called. Ask what the riddle did not say.

Still stuck? Ask for a hint: the category first, then the first letter.

To write your own riddle in four steps:

Step 1: pick an everyday answer, such as a comb.
Step 2: list what it has and does: teeth, a daily trip through hair.
Step 3: borrow the feature with a second meaning (teeth) and deny the usual one (never bites).
Step 4: test it on someone. If another answer fits just as well, add one more clue.

Riddle of the Day: Dinner, Car Rides and Bedtime

A riddle of the day takes about a minute and needs no supplies:

At dinner: one person reads, everyone gets one guess, and whoever solves it reads tomorrow’s.
In the car: the front seat reads, the back seat guesses, and every hint costs one silly animal noise. On long drives, add would you rather questions.
In a lunchbox: write the riddle on a note and give the answer at pickup.

Why are riddles good for kids’ thinking? Britannica Kids notes that riddles entertain people while sharpening their thinking and language skills. An article from The Reading Teacher, republished by Reading Rockets, gives one reason: riddles depend on words with more than one meaning. It describes a study of 46 third graders in which four half-hour sessions on such double meanings led to more improvement on a reading comprehension measure than a control group showed. That is one small study, so treat riddles as playful practice.

One bedtime note from us: riddles are lively, and that energy belongs at the table or before the bath, not at lights out. The American Academy of Pediatrics describes a bedtime routine as a predictable series of steps that help a child wind down: brushing teeth, reading together and a regular bedtime. Our toddler bedtime routine guide shows the order, and bedtime stories for kids covers the calm part.

Related Betteroo Guides

The Bottom Line

Pick the section that fits your crowd, cover the answers and read slowly. Give hints generously and stop while everyone still wants one more. When the riddles run out, try smarter than a 5th grader questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some good riddles with answers?

Good riddles are short and fair. Try these three. What has a head and a tail but no body? A coin. What gets bigger the more you take away from it? A hole. What is always on its way but never arrives? Tomorrow. Each has one answer that feels obvious as soon as you hear it.

What is the hardest riddle in the world?

There is no official hardest riddle. A riddle feels hard when a plain answer hides behind a figure of speech, like this one: what breaks but never falls, and what falls but never breaks? Day and night. A few Old English riddles in the tenth-century Exeter Book still have more than one proposed solution.

What has 13 hearts but no other organs?

A deck of cards. A standard deck has four suits, and the hearts suit has 13 cards, from the ace through the king. The riddle works because you picture a living creature first. It is a good example of a riddle that turns on a single word with two meanings.

What is the most famous riddle in history?

The riddle of the Sphinx is probably the best known. In the Greek myth, the Sphinx waited near the city of Thebes and asked what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three at night. Oedipus gave the answer: a human, who crawls as a baby, walks upright as an adult and leans on a cane in old age.

How do you solve a riddle?

Check three things. First, look for a word with a second meaning, such as the teeth of a comb. Second, read every word literally, because tricky riddles hide the answer in plain sight. Third, find the assumption you made that the riddle never stated. If you are still stuck, ask for the category as a hint.

Are riddles good for kids?

They can be. Britannica Kids notes that riddles entertain people while sharpening thinking and language skills. A Reading Teacher article republished by Reading Rockets adds that riddles depend on words with more than one meaning, which gives children practice with double meanings. Keep it playful, give hints and stop while it is still fun.

Gentle changes, peaceful nights.

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