Whether you’re looking for a brain teaser or a new and exciting way to break the ice during an introduction, riddles are a fun way to connect with other people, which is why we think you’ll benefit from having a list of the best riddles with answers in your back pocket (figuratively speaking) for your next meet and greet.
Similar to telling a really good knock-knock joke, hitting your friends with your favorite dad jokes, or even getting punny with your kids, riddles can be a good way to start a conversation (or keep one going) when you don’t know what else to say. That being said, you don’t need an audience to put on your thinking cap, because one of the best parts about riddles is the fact that you can turn solving riddles into a solo activity, making it an excellent way to keep your mind sharp and fight off boredom.
We’ve put together a list of 101 riddles that will have you scratching your head as you try and figure out what the answer is. Some of them are funny, some of them are logic-based, and a few will really test your critical thinking skills — we’re confident that there’s something on this list for everyone!
Funny Riddles for Adults
1. What can you put in a bucket to make it weigh less?
Answer: A hole.
2. What is at the end of a rainbow?
Answer: The letter W!
3. What is the longest word in the dictionary?
Answer: Smiles, because there is a mile between each ‘s’.
4. If two snakes marry, what will their towels say?
Answer: Hiss and hers
5. How can you drop a raw egg from a height onto a concrete floor without cracking it?
Answer: Concrete floors are very hard to crack.
6. What is 3/7 chicken, 2/3 cat, and 2/4 goat?
Answer: Chicago!
7. Where do you take a sick boat?
Answer: To the dock-tor.
8. Why is Europe like a frying pan?
Answer: Because it has Greece at the bottom.
9. When is a door no longer a door?
Answer: When it's ajar.
10. What tastes better than it smells?
Answer: Your tongue.
11. What building has the most stories?
Answer: A library.
12. What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: Your legs.
13. What has four wheels and flies?
Answer: A garbage truck.
14. What month of the year has 28 days in it?
Answer: All of them.
15. What kind of tree can you carry in your hand?
Answer: A palm!
16. What starts with T, ends with T, and has T in it?
Answer: A teapot.
17. Where is the only place where today comes before yesterday?
Answer: The dictionary.
18. What goes all around the world but stays in a corner?
Answer: A stamp.
19. What has 13 hearts but no other organs?
Answer: A deck of cards.
20. What comes at the end of everything?
Answer: The letter "g."
21. What do the letter "t" and an island have in common?
Answer: They're both in the middle of water.
22. What type of cheese is made backwards?
Answer: Edam.
23. What kind of ship has two mates but no captain?
Answer: A relationship.
24. Who has married many people but has never been married himself?
Answer: A priest.
25. If you throw a blue stone into the Red Sea, what will it become?
Answer: Wet.
26. Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?
Answer: Incorrectly.
27. What has three feet but cannot walk?
Answer: A yardstick.
28. What do you call a nose that's 12 inches long?
Answer: A foot.
Easy Riddles for Adults
29. What begins with an "e" and only contains one letter?
Answer: An envelope.
30. I am easy to lift, but hard to throw. What am I?
Answer: A feather.
31. What has a neck but no head?
Answer: A bottle.
32. What has hands but cannot clap?
Answer: A clock.
33. What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg.
34. What gets shorter as it grows older?
Answer: A candle.
35. What can you catch but never throw?
Answer: A cold.
36. What runs around a whole yard without moving?
Answer: A fence.
37. Which fish costs the most?
Answer: A goldfish.
38. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short.
39. What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs?
Answer: A clock.
40. What has many keys but cannot open a single lock?
Answer: A piano.
41. What's always found on the ground but never gets dirty?
Answer: A shadow.
42. What gets wet while drying?
Answer: A towel.
43. What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin.
44. What is full of holes but still holds water?
Answer: A sponge.
45. What has many teeth but cannot bite?
Answer: A comb.
46. What has one head, one foot, and four legs?
Answer: A bed.
47. What goes up but never comes down?
Answer: Your age.
48. What can you find in a cupboard that can never be put in a saucepan?
Answer: Its lid.
49. What's a single-digit number with no value?
Answer: Zero.
50. What gets smaller every time it takes a bath?
Answer: Soap.
51. What's always running but never gets hot?
Answer: A refrigerator.
Hard Riddles for Adults
52. What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in 1,000 years?
Answer: The letter "m."
53. Throw away the outside and cook the inside, then eat the outside and throw away the inside. What is it?
Answer: Corn on the cob.
54. What 5-letter word typed in all capital letters can be read the same upside down?
Answer: SWIMS.
55. How do you spell "cow" in thirteen letters?
Answer: SEE O DOUBLE YOU.
56. What do you see once in June, twice in November, and not at all in May?
Answer: The letter "e."
57. What word is pronounced the same if you take away four of its five letters?
Answer: Queue.
58. What can fill a room but takes up no space?
Answer: Light.
59. What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?
Answer: Silence.
60. What five-letter word has one left when two letters are removed?
Answer: Stone.
61. What has branches, but no fruit, trunk, or leaves?
Answer: A bank.
62. What word contains 26 letters but has only three syllables?
Answer: The alphabet.
63. What do you bury when it's alive and dig up when it's dead?
Answer: A plant.
64. What can't talk but will reply when spoken to?
Answer: An echo.
65. What is taken before you can get it?
Answer: Your picture.
66. What do you throw out when you want to use it but take in when you don’t want to use it?
Answer: An anchor.
67. Four cars come to a four-way stop, each coming from a different direction. They can’t decide who got there first, so they all go forward at the same time. All 4 cars go, but none crash into each other. How is this possible?
Answer: They all made right-hand turns.
68. What do you lose the moment you share it?
Answer: A secret.
69. What thrives when you feed it but dies when you water it?
Answer: A fire.
70. What belongs to you but is used by everyone you meet?
Answer: Your name.
71. What do you buy to eat but never consume?
Answer: Cutlery.
72. What's lighter than a feather but impossible to hold for much more than a minute?
Answer: Your breath.
73. What makes more as you take them?
Answer: Footsteps.
74. What never walks but always runs?
Answer: A river.
75. What's bought by the yard and worn by the foot?
Answer: A carpet.
Logic Riddles for Adults
76. A cowboy rides into town on Friday. He stays three days, then rides out of town on Friday. How?
Answer: His horse is named Friday.
77. If 2 is company and 3 is a crowd, what are 4 and 5?
Answer: 9.
78. Forward, I am heavy; backward, I am not. What am I?
Answer: A ton
79. What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
Answer: Your left hand.
80. What gets broken without being held?
Answer: A promise.
81. You see a boat filled with people, yet there isn’t a single person on board. How?
Answer: All the people on the boat are married.
82. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
Answer: They are grandfather, father, and son.
83. If your uncle’s sister is not your aunt, then who is she to you?
Answer: Your mother.
84. Two people are born at the same moment, but they don't have the same birthdays. How?
Answer: They were born in different time zones.
85. The person who made it doesn’t need it. The person who bought it doesn’t want it. The person who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?
Answer: A coffin.
86. A man goes outside in the rain without an umbrella or hat but doesn't get a single hair on his head wet. How?
Answer: He's bald.
87. A bus driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street. He passes the cops, but they don’t stop him. Why?
Answer: He was walking.
88. If you are running a race and pass the person in second, then what place are you in?
Answer: Second place.
89. If an electric train is traveling south, then which way is the smoke going?
Answer: There is no smoke—it's an electric train.
90. You enter a room that contains a match, kerosene lamp, candle, and fireplace. What should you light first?
Answer: The match.
91. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?
Answer: Nothing.
92. A mother and father have four daughters, and each daughter has one brother. How many people are in the family?
Answer: Seven.
93. David’s father has three sons. Two of them are named Snap and Crackle. What is the third son's name?
Answer: David.
94. I have a head like a cat and feet like a cat, but I am not a cat. What am I?
Answer: A kitten.
95. If the day before yesterday was the 23rd, then what will be the day after tomorrow?
Answer: The 27th.
96. Whoever makes it doesn't tell. Whoever takes it doesn't know. Whoever knows it doesn't want. What is it?
Answer: Counterfeit money.
97. What common English verb becomes its own past tense by rearranging its letters?
Answer: Eat.
98. What was the biggest island in the world before the discovery of Greenland?
Answer: Greenland was always the biggest—people just didn't know it yet.
99. A is B's father but B isn't A's son. How?
Answer: B is A's daughter.
100. What is one thing that all people, regardless of their politics or religion, have to agree is between heaven and earth?
Answer: The word "and."
101. Two men are in a desert. They both have backpacks on. One of the guys is dead. The guy who is alive has his backpack open and the guy who is dead has his backpack closed. What is in the dead man’s backpack?
Answer: A parachute.
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Editor
Corinne Sullivan is an Editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers a variety of beats, including lifestyle, entertainment, relationships, shopping, and more. She can tell you everything you need to know about the love lives of A-listers, the coziest bedsheets, and the sex toys actually worth your $$$. She is also the author of the 2018 novel Indecent. Follow her on Instagram for cute pics of her pup and bébé.
Contributing Writer
Lauren Wellbank is a freelance writer based in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, Martha Stewart Living, and more. She has three small children, a husband, and an over eager dog at home. When she's not writing she likes to work in her garden with her family.
