I am a food full of round holes, and the people who make me call every hole an eye. What am I?
We stand in curved rows along the edges of your eyelids. Dust lands on us, and the lightest touch on us snaps the lids shut. What are we?
I am the black dot in the middle of the colored ring. I grow wide in a dark room and shrink in bright sun. What am I?
I am a fruit that nobody eats. In an old saying I am the person someone loves above all others. What am I?
I am a game for a long car ride that needs nothing but eyes and one letter: "something beginning with B". What game am I?
Each of your eyes has one of me: a small patch at the back where the nerve leaves and nothing can be seen. You never notice the hole in the picture. What am I?
I am a glass ball named after the eye of a pet, because of the streak of color inside me. What am I?
I am an eye so small that people squint and wet the end of the thread to get it through me. What am I?
I am the place where you see the things you are not looking at. A ball flying toward you shows up in me first. What am I?
Teachers are said to have a pair of me hidden under their hair, and that is how they know who passed the note. What am I?
These riddles about eyes go from the lid and the lashes to a peacock's tail, a tiger's-eye stone and the apple of somebody's eye. Under each answer is the fact, the word history or the meaning of the saying behind it.
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Riddles about the eye, in three sets
The eye and what it does asks for parts and habits: the pupil, a blink, a squint, a glance. Eyes that cannot see is things that are only named for an eye. Glasses, words and sayings is for a table that likes wordplay: the answer is often a saying, such as seeing eye to eye.
Easy riddles and hard ones
About half the list is marked Easy: the answer is something a child can point to. Hard asks for a word such as monocle, or for the old meaning inside a word such as window or daisy.
Stuck guessers get one hint: say whether the answer is part of a face, a thing or a saying.
Questions and answers
What has an eye but cannot see?
Plenty of things: a needle, a potato, a hurricane, a hook-and-eye fastener, a black-eyed pea, a wheel of Swiss cheese. The set Eyes that cannot see has a riddle for each of them and more.
What is an easy riddle about eyes?
I am the eye in the middle of a target, and every archer is trying to hit me. What am I? The bull's-eye. Others at that level are answered by the eyelets of a shoe, snake eyes on two dice and a cat's-eye marble.
What is a hard riddle about the eye?
I am the colored ring of the eye: brown, blue, green or hazel. I share my name with a garden flower and with the Greek goddess of the rainbow. What am I? The iris: the word comes from the Greek for rainbow.
Each of your eyes has one of me: a small patch at the back where the nerve leaves and nothing can be seen. You never notice the hole in the picture. What am I?Answer: The blind spot. Where the optic nerve passes through the back of the eye there are no cells to catch light.
I am a flap of skin that drops and lifts again before you notice. Each time I pass, I wipe the window clean and leave it wet. What am I?Answer: An eyelid. A blink spreads tears across the front of the eye.
I am a full circle that the eyes travel, up and around, when somebody tells the same joke for the tenth time. What am I?Answer: An eye roll. Rolling the eyes says "not again" without a word.
I am a picture that fools the eyes. In one of my best-known kinds, two lines of the same length look longer and shorter because of the arrowheads on their ends. What am I?Answer: An optical illusion. The two lines with arrow-like ends are the Müller-Lyer illusion.
I am over in less than a second, and you do me all day without deciding to. In a staring contest I am how you lose. What am I?Answer: A blink. The first player to blink loses a staring contest.
I am the black dot in the middle of the colored ring. I grow wide in a dark room and shrink in bright sun. What am I?Answer: The pupil. The pupil is the opening that lets light in: it narrows in bright light and widens in the dark.
I am the colored ring of the eye: brown, blue, green or hazel. I share my name with a garden flower and with the Greek goddess of the rainbow. What am I?Answer: The iris. The word iris comes from the Greek for rainbow, for the many colors an iris can be.
I am the place where you see the things you are not looking at. A ball flying toward you shows up in me first. What am I?Answer: The corner of your eye. To see something out of the corner of your eye is to see it at the edge of what you can see.
I am the shortest look there is. You give me to a clock, a mirror or a note on the table, and then your eyes move on. What am I?Answer: A glance. A glance is a quick look.
I am what your face does in bright sun or when the print is too small: the lids come halfway down and the nose wrinkles up. What am I?Answer: A squint. To squint is to look with the eyes partly closed.
It takes two people to make me, and I am broken the moment one of them looks away. Nobody can hold me in a hand. What am I?Answer: Eye contact. Eye contact is two people looking into each other's eyes at the same time.
Two players sit face to face. There is no ball, no board and no talking, and the game is over the moment one of them blinks. What game is it?Answer: A staring contest. Each player tries to stare longer than the other.
We are twins who live a nose apart. We open together, close together and turn together, and neither of us has ever seen the other without a mirror. What are we?Answer: Your eyes. The nose stands between them, so one eye can never look at the other.
We are two small roofs of hair with no walls under us. On a hot day our job is to keep the sweat on your forehead from running into your eyes. What are we?Answer: Eyebrows. Eyebrows turn sweat and rain aside before they reach the eyes.
We stand in curved rows along the edges of your eyelids. Dust lands on us, and the lightest touch on us snaps the lids shut. What are we?Answer: Eyelashes. Lashes keep dust out of the eye and warn it when something comes close.
We start at your eye, roll down your cheek and taste of salt. A chopped onion can call us out, and so can a very good joke. What are we?Answer: Tears. Tears are mostly water with salts in it.
Eyes that cannot see 16
All around me the wind tears at roofs. Inside me the air is nearly still, and you may see clear sky. I am the eye of what?Answer: A hurricane. The eye is the calm center of a hurricane, ringed by its strongest winds.
An old Greek story says that when a watchman with a hundred eyes died, a goddess kept his eyes forever in my tail. They have never seen a thing since. What bird am I?Answer: A peacock. In the myth, Hera set the hundred eyes of Argus in the peacock's tail.
I am a food full of round holes, and the people who make me call every hole an eye. What am I?Answer: Swiss cheese. The holes in Swiss-type cheeses are called eyes; bubbles of gas make them.
I am a glass ball named after the eye of a pet, because of the streak of color inside me. What am I?Answer: A cat's-eye marble. A cat's-eye marble is clear glass with veins of color in the middle.
I am a pale bean with one dark spot, and that spot gives me my name. What am I?Answer: A black-eyed pea. The black-eyed pea is pale with a black spot like an eye.
I am a polished stone with golden-brown bands that shimmer as you turn me, and I am named for the eye of a big striped cat. What am I?Answer: A tiger's eye. Tiger's eye is a gemstone of a golden to red-brown color.
I am a small loop of wire sewn to one side of a collar. My partner on the other side is a hook, and together we hold the collar shut. What am I?Answer: The eye of a hook and eye. A hook-and-eye fastener is a metal hook that catches in a small loop called the eye.
I am a yellow wildflower with a dark brown middle. My first name describes that middle, and my last name is Susan. What am I?Answer: A black-eyed Susan. The black-eyed Susan has yellow petals around a brown or black center.
I am an eye so small that people squint and wet the end of the thread to get it through me. What am I?Answer: The eye of a needle. The hole at the blunt end of a needle is called its eye.
I am the eye in the middle of a target, and every archer is trying to hit me. What am I?Answer: The bull's-eye. The bull's-eye is the center of a target.
I carry a pair of big round eyes painted on my wings. They see nothing, and they can make a hungry bird think twice. What am I?Answer: A butterfly or moth with eyespots. Eyespots are markings that look like the eyes of another animal and may put off a predator.
The longer I sit in a dark cupboard, the more of my eyes wake up, and every one of them grows a sprout. What am I?Answer: A potato. The eyes of a potato are the buds that new stems grow from.
My name began as "day's eye", because I open in the morning and close at night. I am a small white flower with a yellow middle. What am I?Answer: A daisy. The word daisy is thought to come from "day's eye".
My name comes from two old Norse words that mean wind and eye. I am a hole in a wall that lets the daylight in. What am I?Answer: A window. Window comes from the Old Norse vindauga: vindr is wind and auga is eye.
We are small round eyes in two rows down the front of a shoe, and one lace looks through every one of us. What are we?Answer: Eyelets. The holes a shoelace passes through are called eyelets.
We are the two eyes that look up from the table when both dice land with a single dot. What are we?Answer: Snake eyes. A roll of two ones is called snake eyes.
Glasses, words and sayings 17
A tall person and a short person can still do this, because it has nothing to do with height: it means they agree. What do they do?Answer: See eye to eye. To see eye to eye is to agree.
I am a fruit that nobody eats. In an old saying I am the person someone loves above all others. What am I?Answer: The apple of someone's eye. To be the apple of someone's eye is to be the one they cherish most.
I am a game for a long car ride that needs nothing but eyes and one letter: "something beginning with B". What game am I?Answer: I spy. One player says "I spy with my little eye something beginning with" a letter, and the rest guess.
I am a mask for the eyes with a strap around the back of the head. With me on, a swimmer can keep both eyes open under the water. What am I?Answer: Swimming goggles. Goggles keep water away from the eyes.
I am a poster that starts with the biggest letters at the top. Every line you read down is smaller, until you have to guess. What am I?Answer: An eye chart. An eye chart has rows of letters that get smaller and smaller.
I am a tiny clear bowl that rides on the front of your eye. You wear me all day, and nobody else can tell. What am I?Answer: A contact lens. Contact lenses are thin lenses worn on the surface of the eye.
I am an eye that is a whole person. People hire me to follow someone, take notes and find things out. What am I?Answer: A private eye. Private eye is an informal name for a private investigator.
I am an eye wearing nothing at all: no telescope, no microscope and no magnifying glass. Stargazers ask which planets can be seen with me. What am I?Answer: The naked eye. Seeing with the naked eye means seeing without an instrument to help.
I am half a pair of glasses: one round lens with no arms, held in place by the eye socket itself. What am I?Answer: A monocle. A monocle is a single lens worn in front of one eye.
I am the way a map looks at a town: from high above, looking down, the way a hawk would. What am I?Answer: A bird's-eye view. A bird's-eye view is a view of a place from high overhead.
I was there, I watched it happen, and now the judge wants to hear exactly what I saw. What am I?Answer: An eyewitness. An eyewitness is a person who saw something happen with their own eyes.
My name says I hurt an eye, and I am not part of anybody: I am the ugly building or the pile of junk that spoils a nice street. What am I?Answer: An eyesore. An eyesore is something unpleasant to look at.
People hunt all over the house for me, and half the time I am sitting on top of their head. What am I?Answer: A pair of glasses. Glasses pushed up into the hair are easy to forget.
Sailors say me twice to show that they heard an order and will carry it out. I sound just like two of the things they look with. What am I?Answer: Aye aye. On a ship, "aye aye" answers an order: understood, and it will be done.
Teachers are said to have a pair of me hidden under their hair, and that is how they know who passed the note. What am I?Answer: Eyes in the back of your head. The saying is used of somebody so watchful that they seem to see in all directions at once.
Tie me on and the party game can start: you swing a stick at a hanging paper animal full of candy and cannot see where it is. What am I?Answer: A blindfold. A blindfold covers the eyes, as in the game of hitting a piñata.
You have me when you pile your plate high at the buffet and cannot finish half of it. What do people say you have?Answer: Eyes bigger than your stomach. The saying means taking more food than you can eat.