• 147 riddles
  • Checked October 2026

Hard Riddles

Hard riddles with answers, ten at a time: commit to a guess before you tap Show answer.

Hard Riddles

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  1. Two players each get a hat, black or white, by the toss of a coin. Each sees only the other's hat, and both must write down their own color at the same moment, with no signal. What plan, agreed beforehand, makes sure at least one of them is right?
  2. You know me, and you know that you know me, and still you cannot say me. Stop trying, and I walk right in. What am I?
  3. With plenty of me, nothing gets missed. Call something one of me, and something got missed. What word am I?
  4. You make four straight cuts across a pancake, and you may not stack or move the pieces. What is the largest number of pieces you can get?
  5. From a hilltop I take in the whole valley. At a desk I miss the one mistake on the page. What one word am I?
  6. A ship has several of me, a house has one out back, and a dealer shuffles me. What am I?
  7. My first is the price of a bus ride. My second is a hole with water at the bottom. My whole is said at the door. What word am I?
  8. I end the episode by refusing to end the story. What am I?
  9. What number comes next? 1, 2, 6, 15, 31, and then?
  10. Everyone at the table gets me, nobody may take two of me in a row, and children are forever told to wait for me. What am I?

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Hard wordplay 44

  • A broken arm wears me, a play has one, and an angler does me with a line. What am I? Answer: A cast. A hard shell around a broken bone, the actors of a play, and the throw of a fishing line.
  • A bull does me, a battery holds me, and a store adds me to your card. What am I? Answer: A charge. A headlong rush, stored electricity, and an amount of money asked.
  • A detective solves me, a traveler packs me, and every letter comes in my upper kind and my lower kind. What am I? Answer: A case. A matter under investigation, a box for carrying things, and upper case and lower case in print.
  • A doctor sees me all day and has to be me all day. What word am I? Answer: Patient. The person being treated is a patient, and someone who waits calmly is patient.
  • A dog does me all over the couch, a snake does me to its skin, and the lawn mower lives in me. What one word am I? Answer: Shed. To shed is to drop hair or cast off a skin, and a shed is a small building for tools.
  • A general gives me, a waiter takes me, and the alphabet is always in me. What am I? Answer: Order. A command, a request for food, and the way things follow one another.
  • A gymnast keeps me, a bank statement reports me, and a toddler loses me every few steps. What am I? Answer: Balance. Steadiness on your feet, and the amount of money in an account.
  • A kitchen has several of me. A president has only one, and it is full of people. What am I? Answer: A cabinet. It is a cupboard, and it is the group of advisers who head a government's departments.
  • A nurse takes me and you still have me. You can run me without leaving your bed, and I can drop without breaking. What am I? Answer: Your temperature. It is taken with a thermometer, to run a temperature is to have a fever, and a temperature drops.
  • A ship has several of me, a house has one out back, and a dealer shuffles me. What am I? Answer: A deck. A floor of a ship, a wooden platform behind a house, and a pack of cards.
  • A ship that does me comes through the storm. A cliff that does me is slowly worn away. What one word am I? Answer: Weather. To weather a storm is to last through it, and rock that weathers breaks down.
  • A ship that is this for home is on its way. A prisoner who is this is going nowhere. What one word am I? Answer: Bound. Bound for a place means headed there, and bound with rope means tied up.
  • A tall building has many of us, and so does a good grandfather. What are we? Answer: Stories. A story is a floor of a building, and it is a tale.
  • An actor stands on me, a rocket drops me on the way up, and a child is said to be going through me. What am I? Answer: A stage. A platform for performers, one section of a rocket, and a phase.
  • As a habit I am what everybody does. As a suit of clothes I am made for one person only. What one word am I? Answer: Custom. A custom is a common practice, and custom clothes are made to order.
  • Do me to a belt and it holds. A beam that does me gives way. What one word am I? Answer: Buckle. A belt is buckled shut, and a beam buckles when it bends and collapses under a load.
  • Do me to a cake and sugar goes on. Do me to a shelf and something comes off. What one word am I? Answer: Dust. To dust a cake is to sprinkle it, and to dust a shelf is to wipe it clean.
  • Do me to a hedge and something is taken away. Do me to a Christmas tree and something is added. What one word am I? Answer: Trim. A hedge is trimmed by cutting, and a tree is trimmed by decorating it.
  • Do us to a toy and it starts. Do us to a meeting and it ends. Which two words are we? Answer: Wind up. Winding up a toy tightens its spring so it runs, and winding up a meeting brings it to a close.
  • From a hilltop I take in the whole valley. At a desk I miss the one mistake on the page. What one word am I? Answer: Overlook. A hill overlooks a valley by looking down on it, and a reader overlooks a mistake by not seeing it.
  • I am a word for waiting in line, and five of my letters in a row are vowels. What word am I? Answer: Queueing. U, E, U, E, I. The word has a shorter spelling too, queuing, with four vowels in a row.
  • I am left on a restaurant table, I am the very end of your finger, and I am a useful piece of advice. What am I? Answer: A tip. Money left for a waiter, the pointed end of a thing, and a helpful hint.
  • I am the newspapers and their reporters, a machine that squeezes, and what you do to a doorbell. What am I? Answer: The press. News reporters as a group, a device that applies pressure, and to press is to push.
  • I am what a plumber does to a leak, and I am what you are in until the plumber comes. What three-letter word am I? Answer: Fix. To fix is to repair, and to be in a fix is to be in a difficult spot.
  • I am where you swim, a game played with a cue, and the money everyone chips in. What am I? Answer: A pool. A swimming pool, the cue game, and a shared fund.
  • I end a restaurant meal, I threaten a king, and I cover a tablecloth in squares. What am I? Answer: A check. The bill in a restaurant, an attack on the king in chess, and a pattern of squares.
  • I freshen your breath, I stamp out coins, and a collector wants everything in my condition. What am I? Answer: Mint. The herb, the place where coins are made, and the word for an unused, perfect condition.
  • I hold up a fence, I bring the mail, and I am what you do with a photo online. What am I? Answer: A post. An upright pole, the mail, and to post is to publish on the internet.
  • I smooth a fingernail, I hold your papers, and I am a line of people walking one behind another. What am I? Answer: A file. A tool with a rough face, a folder of documents, and a single column of people.
  • My first hears. My second holds eggs. My whole means every word it says. What word am I? Answer: Earnest. Ear and nest.
  • My first is a friend. My second is the playing card with a single spot. A king lives in my whole. What word am I? Answer: Palace. Pal and ace.
  • My first is the price of a bus ride. My second is a hole with water at the bottom. My whole is said at the door. What word am I? Answer: Farewell. Fare and well.
  • My first is to be sure of something. My second is a narrow shelf of rock. My whole fills an encyclopedia. What word am I? Answer: Knowledge. Know and ledge.
  • People dread me in their lives and hold out a hand for me at the cash register. What am I? Answer: Change. Becoming different, and the money handed back when you pay too much.
  • Say me one way and I am near. Say me another way and I shut the door. What five letters am I? Answer: Close. With an S sound it means near. With a Z sound it means to shut.
  • Say me one way and I am what a busy person never stops: she ___ this, he ___ that. Say me another way and I am several female deer. What four letters am I? Answer: Does. The verb rhymes with buzz. The plural of doe, a female deer, rhymes with toes.
  • Say me one way and I count things. Say me another way, with a silent B, and I have less feeling than before. What six letters am I? Answer: Number. It counts when it rhymes with lumber. As the word for more numb, its B is silent and it rhymes with summer.
  • Say me one way and I run under the street. Say me another way and I hold a needle and thread. What five letters am I? Answer: Sewer. A drain under the street, or, said like sower, a person who sews.
  • The tenant does me and the landlord does me, to the same apartment in the same month, and only one of them pays. What four-letter word am I? Answer: Rent. A tenant rents a home from its owner, and the owner rents it to the tenant.
  • When the alarm goes this, the noise starts. When the lamp goes this, the light stops. What three-letter word am I? Answer: Off. An alarm that goes off begins to ring, and a lamp that goes off goes dark.
  • When the stars are this, you can see them. When the lights are this, you cannot see a thing. What three-letter word am I? Answer: Out. Stars that are out are shining, and lights that are out are not.
  • With paper I hold things together. With scissors I cut things off. What four-letter word am I? Answer: Clip. To clip papers is to fasten them, and to clip a hedge or a coupon is to cut it.
  • With plenty of me, nothing gets missed. Call something one of me, and something got missed. What word am I? Answer: Oversight. It means watchful supervision, and it also means a slip made by not noticing.
  • Without a hyphen I walk away from the job. With a hyphen I agree to stay. What word am I? Answer: Resign. To resign is to quit, and to re-sign is to sign on again.

Hard what am I 44

  • A long walk works me up, a snack before dinner spoils me, and a full plate makes me disappear. What am I? Answer: Your appetite. It is worked up, spoiled and satisfied.
  • Alone I am one dot of one color and mean nothing. With a million like me, I am any face you like. What am I? Answer: A pixel. The smallest dot of a picture on a screen.
  • Every driver has me, no mirror shows me, and a turn of the head makes me disappear. What am I? Answer: A blind spot. It is the area beside a car that the mirrors miss, and a look over the shoulder covers it.
  • Everybody makes me and nobody means to. Admit me and I shrink; hide me and I grow. What am I? Answer: A mistake. Nobody makes one on purpose.
  • Everyone at the table gets me, nobody may take two of me in a row, and children are forever told to wait for me. What am I? Answer: A turn. In a game, each player's chance to play.
  • Everything happens exactly as it will tomorrow night: the costumes, the lights, every line. The only thing missing is the people in the seats. What am I? Answer: A dress rehearsal. The last full run of a show before it opens.
  • Everything said before me is there for my sake. Give me away early and I am ruined; explain me afterward and I am ruined again. What am I? Answer: A punch line. The last line of a joke, the one that gets the laugh.
  • I am a first time that feels like a second. What am I? Answer: Déjà vu. The feeling of having already lived through something that is happening for the first time.
  • I am a gap in something made of words. A careful reader slips through me, and the writer hurries to close me. What am I? Answer: A loophole. A gap in a rule or a contract that lets someone get around it.
  • I am a line nobody can see. People race to reach me, and I move only when somebody begs. What am I? Answer: A deadline. Work races toward it, and it moves only when an extension is granted.
  • I am an answer that arrives before the reasons do. Detectives follow me, and judges want more than me. What am I? Answer: A hunch. A feeling that something is so, without proof.
  • I am given to the slower one before the race begins, so that the finish is close. What am I? Answer: A head start. The slower runner sets off first or from further ahead.
  • I am hardest to give when I am most owed. Add the word but, and I stop being what I was. What am I? Answer: An apology. "I am sorry, but" is the start of an excuse.
  • I am hilarious to the few who were there and nonsense to everyone else. Explain me, and I stop being funny. What am I? Answer: An inside joke. Only the people who share the story behind it can laugh.
  • I am made of nothing, and I sit in the middle of a sentence. A comedian who gets my length right gets the laugh. What am I? Answer: A pause. A short silence, and in comedy its length is the timing.
  • I am the part of the play in which nothing happens on stage and everyone in the seats gets up. What am I? Answer: The intermission. The break between the acts.
  • I am the smallest words on the page and often the ones that matter most. Hardly anyone reads me before signing. What am I? Answer: The fine print. The conditions of an agreement, set in small type.
  • I am told too soon. I ruin the ending without changing a word of it. What am I? Answer: A spoiler. It gives away how a story comes out.
  • I am what is left over when the sharing does not come out even, and I am always smaller than the number of people sharing. What am I? Answer: The remainder. Share 17 cookies among 5 people and 2 are left; if 5 or more were left, everyone could take another.
  • I am worked out from everyone in the room, and I may match no one in it. Five people can share me as an age that none of them is. What am I? Answer: The average. Ages of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 60 average 32, and nobody in that room is 32.
  • I am yours until you give enough away. Then I am gone, and you are glad to have nothing. What am I? Answer: A debt. It is yours until it is paid off.
  • I break the rule, and people say I prove it. What am I? Answer: An exception. The saying goes that the exception proves the rule.
  • I come after the end, and only if the clapping refuses to stop. What am I? Answer: An encore. The extra piece played after the show, at the audience's demand.
  • I do my one job by failing. When too much comes through, I give out first, and everything behind me is spared. What am I? Answer: A fuse. Its wire melts when too much current flows, and that breaks the circuit.
  • I end the episode by refusing to end the story. What am I? Answer: A cliffhanger. An ending that stops at the moment of greatest suspense.
  • I have had many owners, and only the first could have bought me. What am I? Answer: An heirloom. It is handed down in a family from one generation to the next.
  • I learn every line of the leading part and hope to be needed. My big night is somebody else's sore throat. What am I? Answer: An understudy. The actor who learns a part in order to step in when the lead cannot go on.
  • I look exactly like a plan, and nobody planned me. Two things meet by chance, and people insist on a reason. What am I? Answer: A coincidence. Events that fall together by chance and seem arranged.
  • I promise less road. Sometimes I keep my promise, and sometimes I am the longest way there. What am I? Answer: A shortcut. It is meant to be the quicker way and does not always turn out to be.
  • I prove you did not do it by proving you were somewhere else. An honest one of me sets you free, and an invented one falls apart under questions. What am I? Answer: An alibi. It is the claim, and the proof, that a person was elsewhere.
  • I see everything clearly, and always too late. Everyone gains me the moment the choosing is over. What am I? Answer: Hindsight. It is the understanding that comes only after the event.
  • I separate two countries and belong to neither. Step across me and the ground is the same, but the rules have changed. What am I? Answer: A border. A line on the map with a different country's laws on each side.
  • I show up right after the mistake. I come in every size, and the more of me you offer, the less each one is believed. What am I? Answer: An excuse. One may be believed, and five in a row are not.
  • I walk into the room before you do and stay after you leave. You built me, and you are the last to hear what I am. What am I? Answer: Your reputation. It is what other people say and think about you.
  • I was clever the first time I was said. I have been said so often since that now I am only tired. What am I? Answer: A cliché. A phrase worn out by too much use.
  • I work only while you believe I am something I am not. Call me, and one of us is about to be embarrassed. What am I? Answer: A bluff. A show of strength that is not there; to call a bluff is to demand that it be proved.
  • One slip of a finger makes me. Nobody sees me before the message is sent, and everybody sees me after. What am I? Answer: A typo. A mistake made in typing.
  • People argue long after they should stop, just to have me. Whoever gets me has usually said too much. What am I? Answer: The last word. The final remark in an argument.
  • People do me this year because they did me last year. Ask who did me first, and nobody at the table knows. What am I? Answer: A tradition. A custom handed down and kept up.
  • People pay for me month after month and hope they never get what they paid for. What am I? Answer: Insurance. It pays out only when something has gone wrong.
  • People stretch me, bend me and bury me, and I am exactly the same when I come out. What am I? Answer: The truth. To stretch it or bend it is to tell less than it, and it does not change.
  • When I am reached, everyone gets something and nobody gets everything. Both sides leave a little unhappy, and that is how they know I am fair. What am I? Answer: A compromise. Each side gives up part of what it wanted.
  • You get one chance to make me, and you have made me before you finish saying hello. What am I? Answer: A first impression. It is made once, at the first meeting.
  • You know me, and you know that you know me, and still you cannot say me. Stop trying, and I walk right in. What am I? Answer: A word on the tip of your tongue. It is known and, for the moment, out of reach.

Logic 18

  • A brother and a sister are twins. The twin in the blue coat says: "I am the sister." The twin in the green coat says: "I am the brother." At least one of them is lying. Which is which? Answer: The twin in blue is the brother and the twin in green is the sister. If only one of them lied, there would be two sisters or two brothers. So both lie.
  • A clock strikes the hours and strikes once at every half hour. You hear a single stroke, then half an hour later another single stroke, then half an hour later a third. What time is it now? Answer: Half past one. Three single strokes in a row can only be half past twelve, one o'clock and half past one.
  • A drawer holds five pairs of black gloves and five pairs of brown gloves, all loose. In the dark, how many gloves must you take to be sure of a pair you can wear: a left and a right of the same color? Answer: Eleven. You could take all ten left gloves first, five black and five brown. The eleventh has to be a right glove, and it matches one of them.
  • A grocer has an old two-pan scale and may put weights on one pan only. What is the fewest weights that let her weigh out every whole number of pounds from 1 to 31? Answer: Five: 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 pounds. Each weight is either on the pan or off it, so four weights give at most 15 totals, and these five give all 31.
  • A road forks. One branch leads to a village where everyone tells the truth, the other to a village where everyone lies. A villager stands at the fork, and you do not know which village is hers. Which one question sends you to the truthful village? Answer: Ask: "Which road leads to your village?" and take the road she points to. A truth-teller points home. A liar points away from home. Both point at the truthful village.
  • A sheet of paper carries six sentences. The first reads: "At least one sentence on this sheet is false." The second reads: "At least two are false." And so on, up to the sixth: "At least six are false." Which sentences are true? Answer: The first three. If exactly three are false, the sentences that ask for one, two or three false ones are true, and the ones that ask for four, five or six are false: three of each. No other count agrees with itself.
  • A waiter asks three logicians: "Does everyone want pie?" The first says: "I do not know." The second says: "I do not know." The third says: "Yes." How does the third know? Answer: The first two would have said no if they did not want pie. So each of them wants it and is unsure only about the others. The third wants it too, and now knows about all three.
  • Eight people sit around a table. Each one always tells the truth or always lies, and each one says: "The person on my right is a liar." How many liars are at the table? Answer: Four. A truth-teller must have a liar on the right, and a liar must have a truth-teller on the right, so the two kinds alternate all the way around.
  • Four coins look alike. Two are heavy and weigh the same, and two are light and weigh the same. With a two-pan balance and no weights, what is the fewest weighings that are sure to find both heavy coins? Answer: Two. Weigh the first coin against the second. If one pan drops, that coin is heavy and the other is light, and weighing the third against the fourth settles them the same way. If they balance, they are a pair: weigh the first against the third to learn which pair is the heavy one.
  • Of three guides, one always tells the truth, one always lies, and one says whatever she likes. Ana says: "Ben is the liar." Ben says: "I am the one who says whatever I like." Cal says: "Ana is the truth-teller." Who is who? Answer: Ana tells the truth, Ben lies, and Cal says whatever she likes. Ben cannot be the truth-teller, since he says he is something else. If Cal were the truth-teller, Ana would be one as well. So it is Ana, and what she says makes Ben the liar.
  • One cup holds juice and another holds the same amount of water. You move a spoonful of juice into the water and stir, then move a spoonful of the mixture back. Is there now more water in the juice, or more juice in the water? Answer: The same amount. Both cups end as full as they began, so whatever juice is missing from the first cup has been replaced by exactly that much water.
  • Three cups stand in a row. The middle one is upside down, and the other two are upright. A move turns over exactly two cups at once. How many moves does it take to stand all three upright? Answer: It cannot be done. Each move changes the number of upside-down cups by two or by nothing, so that number stays odd and never reaches zero.
  • Three foxes and three hens must cross a river in a boat that holds two and cannot cross empty. On a bank that has any hens, the foxes must never outnumber them. What is the fewest crossings that bring all six over? Answer: Eleven. Two foxes cross and one comes back, twice. Two hens cross, and a fox and a hen come back. Two hens cross and a fox comes back. Then two foxes cross, one comes back, and the last two foxes cross.
  • Three islanders each always tell the truth or always lie. Cy says: "At least one of us three is a liar." Dee says: "Eli tells the truth." Eli says nothing. What is each of them? Answer: Cy tells the truth, and Dee and Eli lie. A liar could not say Cy's sentence, because it would then be true. So somebody lies. If Dee were truthful, Eli would be too, and nobody would be lying.
  • Three jars hold marbles. A good marble weighs 10 grams. Any jar, or none, or all three, might be filled with marbles of 11 grams instead. You may read a kitchen scale once. How many marbles do you take from each jar? Answer: One, two and four. The seven weigh 70 grams, plus 1 if the first jar is heavy, plus 2 for the second, plus 4 for the third. Every total from 70 to 77 points to one set of jars.
  • Twenty coins lie on a table in a dark room. Exactly five show heads, and you cannot see or feel which. How can you split the coins into two groups that are sure to show the same number of heads? Answer: Set any five coins apart and turn all five over. If your five held two heads, the other fifteen hold three, and your five, turned over, now show three as well. It works the same for any number.
  • Two players each get a hat, black or white, by the toss of a coin. Each sees only the other's hat, and both must write down their own color at the same moment, with no signal. What plan, agreed beforehand, makes sure at least one of them is right? Answer: One writes the color she sees, and the other writes the opposite of the color he sees. If the hats match, the first is right. If they differ, the second is.
  • You have five pieces of chain, each three links long, and you want one long chain. Opening a link and closing it again is one job. What is the fewest jobs? Answer: Three. Open all three links of one piece and use them to join the other four pieces end to end.

Numbers and sequences 25

  • A car's odometer reads 39,993 miles, the same backward as forward. Fifteen minutes later it shows the next number that reads the same both ways. What was the car's average speed? Answer: 44 miles an hour. The next such number is 40,004, only 11 miles further on, and 11 miles in a quarter of an hour is 44 in an hour.
  • A customer pays for a 25-dollar hat with a 50-dollar bill. The hatter has no change, so he gets the bill changed next door and hands over the hat and 25 dollars. Later the bill proves fake, and he repays his neighbor 50. What has the hatter lost? Answer: 50 dollars' worth: the 25 in change and the 25-dollar hat. The neighbor ended where she started, so the whole loss is what the customer walked away with.
  • A post office sells only 3-cent and 5-cent stamps. What is the largest postage you cannot make exactly? Answer: 7 cents. You can make 8, 9 and 10 cents, and adding 3-cent stamps to those reaches every amount above them.
  • A rectangle is drawn inside a quarter of a circle. One corner sits at the circle's center, and the opposite corner touches the curve. The circle's radius is 10 inches. How long is the rectangle's diagonal? Answer: 10 inches. A rectangle's two diagonals are equal, and the one from the center to the curve is a radius.
  • A rower heading upstream loses her hat in the river and does not notice for ten minutes. She turns around and rows after it just as hard. How long until she reaches the hat? Answer: Ten minutes. The river carries hat and boat alike, so on the water she simply rowed ten minutes away from the hat and has ten minutes to row back.
  • A train half a mile long enters a tunnel a mile and a half long at 60 miles an hour. How long is it until the last car is out of the tunnel? Answer: Two minutes. The engine needs a minute and a half to reach the far end, and the last car is then still half a mile inside. It needs another half minute to come out.
  • A triangle has sides of 3, 4 and 7 inches. What is its area? Answer: Nothing. 3 and 4 make exactly 7, so the two short sides lie flat along the long one and enclose no space.
  • Every day a commuter's train gets in at five, and her husband drives up at that moment to take her home. One day she arrives at half past four and starts walking home. He meets her on the road, and they get home ten minutes early. How long did she walk? Answer: 25 minutes. The car saved ten minutes, five each way, so it met her at five to five instead of reaching the station at five.
  • In how many different ways can you make exactly 25 cents out of pennies, nickels and dimes? Answer: Twelve. With two dimes there are two ways, with one dime four ways, and with no dime six ways, depending on how many nickels you use.
  • Lena is 36. She is twice as old as Otis was when Lena was as old as Otis is now. How old is Otis? Answer: 27. Nine years ago Lena was 27, the age Otis is now, and Otis was 18, which is half of 36.
  • Rosa buys a bike for 40 dollars, sells it for 50, buys it back for 60 and sells it again for 70. How much money has she made? Answer: 20 dollars. She paid out 100 in all and took in 120.
  • The spaces in a parking lot are numbered, as you walk past them, 11, 01, 60, 80, then a parked car, then 90. What number is under the car? Answer: 07. Seen from the other side, the numbers run 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11. You are reading them upside down.
  • Take 1, subtract 2, add 3, subtract 4, and keep going that way until you add 99. What do you end with? Answer: 50. After the 1, the steps pair up as minus 2 plus 3, minus 4 plus 5, and so on. Each of the 49 pairs adds 1.
  • Two hikers share their bread with a third. One hiker brought 2 loaves and the other 3, and all three eat the same amount. The guest leaves 5 coins in thanks. How should the two hikers split them? Answer: One coin and four coins. Each person ate 5 thirds of a loaf. The hiker with 2 loaves gave up one third, and the hiker with 3 gave up four thirds.
  • Two whole numbers multiply to exactly one million, and neither has a zero anywhere in it. What are they? Answer: 64 and 15,625. A million is six 2s times six 5s. Put a 2 and a 5 in the same number and it ends in zero, so all the 2s go one way and all the 5s the other.
  • Using pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, what is the most money you can hold in coins and still be unable to make exact change for a dollar? Answer: $1.19, for example three quarters, four dimes and four pennies. No handful of those eleven coins adds up to exactly a dollar.
  • What is the smallest whole number whose digits add up to 20? Answer: 299. Two digits can add up to 18 at most, so it takes three, and the smallest first digit that works is 2, followed by two 9s.
  • What letter comes next? E, O, E, R, E, X, N, and then? Answer: T. They are the last letters of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then eight.
  • What number comes next? 0, 1, 1, 2, 4, 7, 13, and then? Answer: 24. From the fourth number on, each is the sum of the three before it: 4 + 7 + 13.
  • What number comes next? 1, 2, 6, 15, 31, and then? Answer: 56. The steps between them are 1, 4, 9 and 16, the squares, so the next step is 25.
  • What number comes next? 1, 4, 27, 256, and then? Answer: 3,125. Each number is multiplied by itself as many times as its place in the row: one 1, two 2s, three 3s, four 4s, then five 5s.
  • What number comes next? 7, 8, 5, 5, 3, 4, 4, and then? Answer: 6. They are the numbers of letters in the months: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, and then August.
  • What number comes next? 61, 52, 63, 94, 46, and then? Answer: 18. They are the squares 16, 25, 36, 49 and 64 written backward, and the next square is 81.
  • Which is the bigger number: the seconds in one day, or the hours in ten years? Answer: The hours in ten years. A day has 86,400 seconds. Ten years have at least 87,600 hours.
  • You make four straight cuts across a pancake, and you may not stack or move the pieces. What is the largest number of pieces you can get? Answer: Eleven. The first cut makes 2 pieces, and the next three add 2, 3 and 4, because a cut makes the most new pieces when it crosses every cut before it.

Lateral thinking 16

  • A car is pointing west on a straight road. The driver travels one mile and ends up one mile east of where she started. How? Answer: She drove in reverse. The car pointed west the whole time and rolled east.
  • A diner finds a fly in her tea and sends it back. The waiter returns with a cup, she takes one sip and says: "This is the same tea." How does she know? Answer: She had already put sugar in it. The new cup tastes sweet, so the fly was fished out and the tea brought back.
  • A footbridge takes ten minutes to walk across. The guard looks out every six minutes, and whoever he sees on the bridge he makes turn around. How do you get across? Answer: Set off right after he looks, walk for almost six minutes, then turn and start back. He sees you coming back and makes you turn around, and you finish the crossing before he looks again.
  • A hiker leaves at sunrise, climbs a mountain trail and reaches the top at sunset. The next day she leaves the top at sunrise and walks down the same trail. Is there a spot she passes at exactly the same time on both days? Answer: Yes, always. Picture both walks on one day, with a second hiker coming down as the first goes up. On a single trail the two must meet, and where they meet is that spot.
  • A man was born in the year 40 and died in the year 20, at the age of 20. How? Answer: The years were B.C., which count down. The year 40 B.C. came twenty years before 20 B.C.
  • A straight-sided glass with no markings is more than half full of water. Without any other container or tool, how do you leave exactly half a glass? Answer: Tip the glass and pour until the water's surface runs from the lip of the rim to the opposite edge of the bottom. That slanted surface cuts the glass exactly in two.
  • A town has exactly two barbers. One has a neat, even haircut. The other's hair is a ragged mess. Which barber do you go to? Answer: The one with the ragged hair. Neither barber cuts his own hair, so each is wearing the other's work.
  • A villager needs to know what an elephant weighs. She has a river, a boat, a heap of stones and a small scale that weighs one stone at a time. How does she do it? Answer: She leads the elephant onto the boat and marks the waterline. Then she swaps the elephant for stones until the boat sinks to the same mark. The stones, weighed one by one, add up to the elephant.
  • A woman hands a book across a counter, pays three dollars and walks out without the book. She got exactly what she came for. What happened? Answer: She returned an overdue library book and paid the fine.
  • All ten members of a family are at the reunion, and all ten gather for the family photo. Nobody hides and nobody leaves, and the photo shows nine people. Why? Answer: One of them is taking the picture. Whoever holds the camera is not in the photo.
  • Ana and Ben finished the same book on the same day. It took Ana a year and Ben an afternoon. How? Answer: Ana wrote it and Ben read it. Finishing a book means two different things.
  • Before bed at eight, Sam sets his wind-up alarm clock, the kind with hands, to ring at nine in the morning. He falls asleep at once and wakes when it rings. How long did he sleep? Answer: One hour. A clock with hands cannot tell nine at night from nine in the morning.
  • Leo's grandfather is five years younger than Leo's father. Nobody has the dates wrong. How? Answer: He is Leo's mother's father. Leo's father is simply older than his own father-in-law.
  • Mia lives on the twelfth floor. Alone, she rides the elevator all the way down in the morning, but coming home she gets out at the fifth floor and climbs the stairs. With a neighbor aboard, she rides to twelve. Why? Answer: She is a child and cannot reach the button for twelve. Five is the highest button she can press, and the lobby button is at the bottom.
  • Roman numerals write nine as IX. Add a single stroke of the pen and make six. Answer: Draw an S in front: SIX. Nobody said the six had to be a Roman numeral.
  • Twins are born ten minutes apart. Their birth certificates say the second baby arrived fifty minutes before the first, and nobody made a mistake. How? Answer: The clocks went back an hour between the two births. It was the night daylight saving time ended, and the second baby came in the hour that the clocks repeat.

How it works

Nothing easy is on this page. These difficult riddles run from a word with two opposite meanings to three foxes, three hens and one small boat. Some tough riddles are old ideas retold; most are new.

Read the full guide

Hard riddles to solve, in five kinds

Hard wordplay turns on one word with two jobs and holds the funny hard riddles: the answer is a groan once you see it. Hard what am I is the set of cryptic riddles, with no giveaway clue. Logic has liars, weighings and river crossings. Numbers and sequences wants a pencil. Lateral thinking hides a wrong assumption.

Really hard riddles, and harder

Every riddle is rated Hard or Very hard, by our own judgment. About four in ten are Very hard: the super hard riddles, complex riddles with a trap inside a trap and complicated riddles that take three steps. Extremely hard riddles for one table are quick work for the next.

  • For hard riddles for adults at a dinner table, read each one aloud twice and let people argue before you show the answer.
  • Print makes hard riddles printable: each riddle with room to write, and the answers on a sheet of their own.

Questions and answers

What are some short hard riddles?

Two of the shortest on the page. I break the rule, and people say I prove it. What am I? An exception. I end the episode by refusing to end the story. What am I? A cliffhanger.

Where are the very hard riddles?

Open More filters under the menu, then Very hard, and only those are dealt. Insanely hard riddles are among them: six sentences that count each other's lies, three jars and one reading of a scale, a parking lot read upside down.

What are some enigmatic riddles?

Two from the Hard what am I set. I am a gap in something made of words. A careful reader slips through me, and the writer hurries to close me. A loophole. I am a first time that feels like a second. Déjà vu.

Where is a list of 50 hard riddles?

Further down this page, and it runs to about three times that many: every riddle sorted into its set, with the answer and the reason it fits printed beside it.

How do you solve hard riddles?

Most challenging riddles turn on a word doing two jobs or on a fact you added yourself. The riddle of ten relatives and a photo of nine never says who holds the camera. In a logic riddle, suppose one answer and hunt for the contradiction.

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