Riddles with Answers: 120+ Easy, Funny, Tricky & Hard Riddles

Quick Answer

A riddle is a short question or statement worded to sound puzzling, with a hidden answer that makes sense once you look at it from the right angle.

This page has 120+ riddles with answers, grouped by difficulty and type: easy riddles, riddles for kids, funny riddles, tricky riddles, hard riddles, riddles for adults, “what am I?” riddles, short riddles, math riddles, and word riddles. The answer follows each riddle, so you don’t need to scroll or tap.

What Is a Riddle? (Riddles Meaning)

A riddle is a puzzle in the form of a question. It describes something in a clever, indirect or misleading way, so the listener has to figure out what it really is.

Riddles are one of the oldest word games. A famous example comes from Greek myth, where the Sphinx asked travelers what creature walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening. The answer is a human being: a crawling baby, a walking adult and an older person with a cane.

Most riddles use one of a few tricks: a pun, a metaphor, a trick of logic, or a detail that your mind skips over.

Types of Riddles (With Examples)

Easy Riddles with Answers

Great for beginners, kids and warm-ups.

1. I have four legs but never walk, and I hold up your dinner. What am I? Answer: A table.
2. What has keys but opens no doors? Answer: A piano.
3. What gets wetter the more it dries? Answer: A towel.
4. I’m tall when I’m new and short when I’m old, and I give light as I shrink. What am I? Answer: A candle.
5. What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs? Answer: A clock.
6. What goes up when the rain comes down? Answer: An umbrella.
7. What has a neck but no head? Answer: A bottle.
8. What can you catch but never throw? Answer: A cold.
9. What has teeth but can’t bite? Answer: A comb.
10. What runs all day but never gets anywhere? Answer: A faucet.
11. What has a spine but no bones? Answer: A book.
12. I follow you everywhere but vanish in the dark. What am I? Answer: Your shadow.
13. What has one eye but can’t see? Answer: A needle.
14. What building has the most stories? Answer: A library.
15. What starts with T, ends with T and has T inside? Answer: A teapot.
16. What has legs but doesn’t walk, and you sit on it? Answer: A chair.
17. What fruit is always found in a pair? Answer: A pear.
18. What can you keep after giving it to someone? Answer: Your word.

Riddles for Kids (With Answers)

Short, friendly and based on things kids see every day. For jokes in the same spirit, see our jokes for kids.

19. I’m yellow and curved, and monkeys love me. What am I? Answer: A banana.
20. I have a trunk but no car. What am I? Answer: An elephant.
21. I fly without wings and cry without eyes. What am I? Answer: A cloud.
22. I’m white and cold and fall from the sky in winter. What am I? Answer: Snow.
23. What grows when you feed it but disappears if you give it water? Answer: Fire.
24. I’m round, I bounce and I love the playground. What am I? Answer: A ball.
25. I’m a bird that can’t fly but swims in the cold. What am I? Answer: A penguin.
26. What has a head and a tail but no body? Answer: A coin.
27. What kind of room has no doors or windows? Answer: A mushroom.
28. What is full of holes but still holds water? Answer: A sponge.
29. I carry my house on my back. What am I? Answer: A snail.
30. I have wheels and take children to school. What am I? Answer: A school bus.
31. I’m sweet and cold and come in a cone. What am I? Answer: Ice cream.
32. I buzz around flowers and make honey. What am I? Answer: A bee.
33. I have petals and need sunshine and water to grow. What am I? Answer: A flower.
34. What has four wheels and flies? Answer: A garbage truck.

Funny Riddles with Answers

Pun riddles that get a groan first and a laugh second.

35. What do you call a fish that needs help with vocals? Answer: Auto-tuna.
36. What do you call a cow that plays guitar? Answer: A moo-sician.
37. Why did the coin quit its job? Answer: It lost all its cents of purpose.
38. What did the left eye say to the right eye? Answer: “Between us, something smells.”
39. What’s a skeleton’s least favorite room? Answer: The living room.
40. What do you call a bear caught in the rain? Answer: A drizzly bear.
41. Why did the lamp go to the party? Answer: It was a bright spark.
42. What kind of cat loves to go bowling? Answer: An alley cat.
43. What has a bank but no money? Answer: A river.
44. Why did the music teacher need a ladder? Answer: To reach the high notes.
45. Why was the broom late for the meeting? Answer: It over-swept.
46. What kind of shoes do spies wear? Answer: Sneakers.

Tricky Riddles with Answers (Short and Tricky)

Read carefully. The trick is usually in the wording.

47. How many months have 28 days? Answer: All 12.
48. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but 9 run away. How many are left? Answer: 9.
49. What can travel around the world while staying in one corner? Answer: A stamp.
50. What belongs to you but is used more by other people? Answer: Your name.
51. What is always in front of you but can’t be seen? Answer: The future.
52. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it? Answer: Short.
53. The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I? Answer: Footsteps.
54. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment but never in a thousand years? Answer: The letter M.
55. Which is heavier: a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks? Answer: Neither. They both weigh a pound.
56. What goes through towns and fields but never moves? Answer: A road.
57. What can be cracked, made, told and played? Answer: A joke.
58. If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you no longer have me. What am I? Answer: A secret.
59. What word is always spelled wrong in the dictionary? Answer: “Wrong.”
60. What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it? Answer: Silence.
61. A man pushes his car to a hotel and says he’s bankrupt. Why? Answer: He’s playing Monopoly.

Hard Riddles with Answers (Hardest Riddles)

Take your time. Hints are below each one if you need them.

62. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I? Hint: You hear me in canyons and big empty rooms. Answer: An echo.
63. The more of me there is, the less you see. What am I? Hint: Think of what happens at night. Answer: Darkness.
64. I have cities but no houses, mountains but no trees, and water but no fish. What am I? Hint: You fold me or open me on a screen. Answer: A map.
65. You see a boat filled with people, yet there isn’t a single person on board. How? Hint: Think about the word “single.” Answer: Everyone on board is married.
66. 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? Hint: “My father’s son” is the speaker. Answer: His own son.
67. I’m found in the middle of March and April, but not at the start or end. What am I? Answer: The letter R.
68. What has 13 hearts but no other organs? Answer: A deck of cards.
69. Three doctors say Robert is their brother, but Robert says he has no brothers. How is that possible? Hint: Who says doctors are men? Answer: The doctors are his sisters.
70. What can be broken without being touched? Answer: A promise.
71. What is light as a feather, yet the strongest person can’t hold it for more than a few minutes? Answer: Breath.
72. What begins with E, ends with E but contains only one letter? Answer: An envelope.
73. What word contains all 26 letters? Answer: “Alphabet.”
74. What’s the next letter in this sequence: O, T, T, F, F, S, S, …? Hint: Say the numbers one, two, three out loud. Answer: E (for eight).
75. What question can you never answer “yes” to? Hint: Think about what it takes to answer. Answer: “Are you asleep?”

Riddles for Adults

A little wittier and based on adult life.

76. I’m easy to make, hard to keep and often broken by February. What am I? Answer: A New Year’s resolution.
77. Everyone has one, nobody wants to pay it, and it comes in the mail. What is it? Answer: A bill.
78. You can’t see me, but you’re cranky when you don’t get enough of me. What am I? Answer: Sleep.
79. I start most mornings, I’m bitter unless sweetened and I make meetings bearable. What am I? Answer: Coffee.
80. The more you have of me, the less room you have. I live in closets and garages. What am I? Answer: Clutter.
81. What can you spend but never see and never keep? Answer: Time.
82. I’m in your inbox but I was never invited. What am I? Answer: Spam.
83. I hold all your appointments, but I never keep one. What am I? Answer: A calendar.

“What Am I?” Riddles

84. I’m small and bright, I live in a box and one strike wakes me. What am I? Answer: A match.
85. I get cut every day but I grow back. What am I? Answer: Hair.
86. I’m taken from a mine and shut inside a wooden case, never released, yet almost everyone uses me. What am I? Answer: Pencil lead.
87. I have a head, a foot and four legs, and you sleep on me. What am I? Answer: A bed.
88. I have a tongue but cannot taste, and I’m often laced up. What am I? Answer: A shoe.
89. I’m full of numbers, but I never add anything up until you press me. What am I? Answer: A calculator.
90. I’m cut but never bleed, and I’m served at birthdays. What am I? Answer: A cake.
91. I live in the sky but I’m not a star, and I change shape every night. What am I? Answer: The moon.

Short Riddles

92. What’s easy to lift but hard to throw? Answer: A feather.
93. What can fill a room but takes up no space? Answer: Light.
94. What goes up but never comes down? Answer: Your age.
95. What has a ring but no finger? Answer: A phone.
96. What gets bigger when more is taken away? Answer: A hole.
97. What comes down but never goes up? Answer: Rain.
98. What type of band never plays music? Answer: A rubber band.
99. What has a thumb and four fingers but isn’t alive? Answer: A glove.
100. What ship sails without sails or water? Answer: A friendship.
101. What can you hear but never see or touch? Answer: A sound.

Math Riddles

102. I’m an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What number am I? Answer: Seven (take away the “s” and you get “even”).
103. What is half of two plus two? Answer: Three (half of two is one, plus two).
104. Divide 30 by one-half and add 10. What do you get? Answer: 70 (30 ÷ ½ = 60, plus 10).
105. If you multiply me by any other number, the answer is always me. What am I? Answer: Zero.
106. How many times can you subtract 5 from 25? Answer: Once. After that, you’re subtracting from 20.
107. What three positive numbers give the same result whether you add or multiply them? Answer: 1, 2 and 3 (1 + 2 + 3 = 6 and 1 × 2 × 3 = 6).
108. A clock takes 5 seconds to strike 6. How long does it take to strike 12? Answer: 11 seconds. Six strikes have five gaps (1 second each), and twelve strikes have eleven gaps.
109. If two is company and three is a crowd, what are four and five? Answer: Nine.

Word Riddles

110. What word has three double letters in a row? Answer: Bookkeeper.
111. What is the longest word in the dictionary? Answer: “Smiles,” because there’s a mile between the first and last letters.
112. What starts with P, ends with E and has thousands of letters? Answer: The post office.
113. What seven-letter word has hundreds of letters? Answer: Mailbox.
114. What five-letter word sounds like it has only one letter? Answer: Queue.
115. Which letter is a drink? Answer: T (tea).
116. What letter is a body of water? Answer: C (sea).
117. What is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end and the end of every place? Answer: The letter E.

A Week of Riddles (Mini Riddle Set)

Share one a day in a group chat or at the dinner table.

• Monday: What has to be broken before you can use it? Answer: An egg.
• Tuesday: What gets sharper the more you use it? Answer: Your brain.
• Wednesday: What invention helps you see through walls? Answer: A window.
• Thursday: What’s always coming but never arrives? Answer: Tomorrow.
• Friday: What has no beginning, end or middle? Answer: A circle.
• Saturday: What goes in hard and comes out soft? Answer: Chewing gum.
• Sunday: What is always asleep on a day off? Answer: An alarm clock.

How to Solve a Riddle (7 Tips)?

1. Read it twice. Riddles hide the answer in an everyday word.
2. Look for the trick word. Words like “single,” “all but” and “front” often carry a double meaning.
3. Ask what it could be literally, then figuratively. “A bank with no money” is a river bank.
4. Picture the scene. Many riddles describe a real thing from an odd angle.
5. Count and check. For math and logic riddles, write it down.
6. Say the answer out loud. Wordplay is easier to hear than to read.
7. Don’t overthink it. Many hard riddles have simple answers.

How to Write Your Own Riddle?

1. Pick an object. For example, a sock.
2. List what it does. It comes in pairs, gets lost and lives in drawers.
3. Describe it without naming it. “I come in pairs but one of me always goes missing.”
4. . “I come in pairs but one of me always goes missing.”
5. Add a twist. “Even the washing machine can’t explain where I go.”
6. Test it on a friend. If they get it in one try, make the clues a little harder.

Fun Ways to Use Riddles

• Car trips: one riddle per mile marker
• Dinner table: a “riddle of the night” tradition
• Classroom or lunchbox notes: pair with our school jokes
• Team meetings: a riddle to start a call
• Party game: divide into teams, one point per correct answer

For more puzzles and laughs, see our one-liner jokes, clean jokes and punny jokes.

FAQs

What is a riddle?

A riddle is a puzzling question or statement with a hidden answer. You solve it by looking at the clues from a different angle.

What does “riddles meaning” refer to?

It refers to what a riddle is and how it works. See “What Is a Riddle?” at the top of this page.

What are some easy riddles with answers?

“What has keys but opens no doors? A piano.” The easy riddles section has 17 more.

What are some good riddles for kids?

“I’m yellow and curved, and monkeys love me. What am I? A banana.” See the kids section.

What are some hard riddles with answers?

“I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. What am I? An echo.” The hard riddles section has more, each with a hint.

What are some tricky riddles?

“How many months have 28 days? All 12.” The tricky section has more where the trick is in the wording.

What are riddles for adults?

Riddles that use adult-life topics like bills, coffee and resolutions, plus harder logic puzzles.

What are “what am I” riddles?

Riddles that describe an object and ask you to name it, usually ending in “What am I?”

What are examples of riddles?

Every riddle on this page is an example. The “Types of Riddles” table shows one example of each type.