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Riddles for adults

Riddles that need grown-up vocabulary or some sideways thinking, for dinner parties and long car rides.

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How to play a riddle game

1. One person reads the riddle. Reading it twice is allowed.
2. Everyone guesses out loud, or teams write one answer down.
3. Reveal the answer. The first correct guess scores a point, and the winner reads the next riddle.

Updated November 2026.

1. How much did the pirate pay to get his ears pierced? Answer: A buck an ear
2. What do you call a dinosaur with a big vocabulary? Answer: A thesaurus
3. The more of them you take, the more you leave behind. What are they? Answer: Footsteps
4. What belongs to you, but other people use it far more than you do? Answer: Your name
5. What travels all over the world while staying in one corner? Answer: A stamp
6. What has cities without houses, forests without trees and rivers without water? Answer: A map
7. What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it? Answer: Silence
8. What kind of coat can only be put on wet? Answer: A coat of paint
9. If you have it, you want to share it. Once you share it, you no longer have it. What is it? Answer: A secret
10. Where does Friday come before Thursday? Answer: In the dictionary
11. What has branches but no leaves, and keeps other people's money? Answer: A bank
12. What tastes better than it smells? Answer: Your tongue
13. What has thirteen hearts but no other organs? Answer: A deck of cards
14. What do sailors throw overboard when they want to stay and haul back up when they want to go? Answer: An anchor
15. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it and gray when you throw it away? Answer: Charcoal
16. Spelled forward, I'm heavy. Spelled backward, I'm not. What word am I? Answer: Ton
17. What five-letter word gets shorter when you add two letters to it? Answer: Short
18. What word has three syllables and twenty-six letters? Answer: Alphabet
19. What begins with an E, ends with an E, and usually holds just one letter? Answer: An envelope
20. What is always ahead of you, never behind you, and can't be seen? Answer: The future
21. What sits at the bottom of the sea and shakes? Answer: A nervous wreck
22. What did the grape do when it got stepped on? Answer: It let out a little wine
23. What do lawyers wear to court? Answer: Lawsuits
24. What has a foot on each end and a third foot in the middle? Answer: A yardstick
25. What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening? Answer: A person
26. What has keys but no locks, space but no room, and lets you enter but never leave? Answer: A computer keyboard
27. What kind of ship has two mates, no captain and an anniversary? Answer: A relationship
28. What is harder to catch the faster you run? Answer: Your breath
29. The more of me there is, the less you see, and one match is enough to beat me. What am I? Answer: Darkness
30. What goes around and around the wood but never goes into the wood? Answer: The bark of a tree
31. What three different positive whole numbers give the same answer whether you add them or multiply them? Answer: One, two and three
32. Two mothers and two daughters each order a burger. Only three burgers come, and nobody goes without. How? Answer: They are a grandmother, a mother and a daughter
33. A farmer has seventeen sheep and all but nine run away. How many does he have left? Answer: Nine
34. How many times can you subtract five from twenty-five? Answer: Once. After that it's twenty.
35. The doctor hands you three pills and says to take one every half hour. How long until they're gone? Answer: One hour
36. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain on Earth? Answer: Mount Everest
37. How far can a dog run into the woods? Answer: Halfway. After that it's running out.
38. Pointing at a photo, a man says: I have no brothers or sisters, but that man's father is my father's son. Who is in the photo? Answer: His son
39. A ladder hangs off a ship with its bottom rung just touching the water. The tide rises three feet. How many rungs are under water now? Answer: None. The ship rises with the tide.
40. You have two coins worth thirty cents together, and one of them is not a nickel. What are they? Answer: A quarter and a nickel. The quarter is the one that isn't a nickel.
41. What is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order when you spell it out? Answer: Forty
42. Which number has exactly as many letters as its own value? Answer: Four
43. What is thirty divided by one half, plus ten? Answer: Seventy
44. A woman has seven daughters, and each daughter has one brother. How many children does she have? Answer: Eight
45. What can you put between a five and a six to get a number bigger than five and smaller than six? Answer: A decimal point
46. When Jo was six, her sister was half her age. Jo is forty now. How old is her sister? Answer: Thirty-seven
47. A snail is at the bottom of a ten-foot well. Each day it climbs three feet, and each night it slides back two. On which day does it get out? Answer: Day eight
48. A pen and a notebook cost $1.10 together. The notebook costs a dollar more than the pen. How much is the pen? Answer: Five cents
49. A patch of clover doubles in size every day and covers the whole lawn on day thirty. On which day did it cover half the lawn? Answer: Day twenty-nine
50. If five machines take five minutes to make five toys, how long do a hundred machines take to make a hundred toys? Answer: Five minutes
51. What letter comes next: O, T, T, F, F, S, S? Answer: E, for eight
52. A man shaves a dozen times a day and still has a full beard. How? Answer: He's a barber
53. A man walks through pouring rain with no hat, hood or umbrella, and not one hair on his head gets wet. How? Answer: He's bald
54. A cowboy rides into town on Friday, stays three nights and rides out on Friday. How? Answer: His horse is named Friday
55. A truck driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street, right past a police officer, and doesn't get a ticket. Why? Answer: He was walking
56. You walk into a dark cabin with one match. There is a candle, an oil lamp and a fireplace. What do you light first? Answer: The match
57. How can you drop a raw egg onto a concrete floor without cracking it? Answer: Easily. Concrete floors are very hard to crack.
58. The butcher is six feet tall and wears size twelve shoes. What does he weigh? Answer: Meat
59. What has six faces and twenty-one eyes but can't see? Answer: A die
60. What can be cracked, made, told and played? Answer: A joke
61. What can be driven without wheels and sliced without a knife? Answer: A golf ball
62. I'm dug out of the ground and shut inside a wooden case that I never leave, yet nearly everyone has used me. What am I? Answer: Pencil lead (graphite)
63. What word sounds exactly the same after you take away four of its five letters? Answer: Queue
64. What seven-letter word has hundreds of letters in it? Answer: Mailbox
65. What goes through a door but never comes in or goes out? Answer: A keyhole
66. What can you swallow by the glass that can also swallow you whole? Answer: Water
67. Throw me off a rooftop and I'll be fine. Drop me in a puddle and I'm ruined. What am I? Answer: A sheet of paper
68. What has room for ten fingers but can only be filled by empty hands? Answer: A pair of gloves
69. What goes in dry, comes out wet, and the longer it stays in, the stronger the drink gets? Answer: A tea bag
70. What connects two people but touches only one? Answer: A wedding ring
71. What can you steal in front of thousands of people, with an umpire watching, and get cheered for it? Answer: A base
72. What kind of running means you'll be walking? Answer: Running out of gas
73. What kind of stones are never found in the ocean? Answer: Dry ones
74. What is the difference between a jeweler and a jailer? Answer: One sells watches and the other watches cells
75. What is the difference between a cat and a comma? Answer: One has claws at the end of its paws. The other is a pause at the end of a clause.
76. What is the difference between a teacher and a train conductor? Answer: One trains minds and the other minds trains
77. I saw a cruise ship packed with people, yet there wasn't a single person on board. How? Answer: They were all married
78. My grandfather is only six years older than my father. How is that possible? Answer: He is my mother's father
79. How many birthdays does a ninety-year-old have? Answer: One. The rest are anniversaries.
80. What is bought by the yard and worn by the foot? Answer: Carpet
81. What was tomorrow yesterday and will be yesterday tomorrow? Answer: Today
82. What falls every evening without breaking, and what breaks every morning without falling? Answer: Night and day
83. What do you get twice for free but have to pay for the third time? Answer: Teeth
84. What can you spend, save, waste, tell and run out of? Answer: Time
85. What can you keep only after you've given it to someone? Answer: Your word (or a promise)
86. What do you break every morning without making a sound? Answer: Your fast
87. What can you draw without a pencil and then soak in? Answer: A bath
88. What has a crown without being a king and a root without being a plant? Answer: A tooth
89. Which two parts of your body share their names with a tree and a fish? Answer: Your palm and your sole
90. What has a pupil but no classroom and a lid but no jar? Answer: Your eye
91. What has six pockets but has never worn pants? Answer: A pool table
92. What state is round at both ends and high in the middle? Answer: Ohio
93. What do you call a number that can't sit still? Answer: A roamin' numeral
94. What do you call a line of rabbits hopping backward? Answer: A receding hare line
95. What do you call a belt made out of watches? Answer: A waist of time
96. What is the leading cause of dry skin? Answer: Towels
97. What did the buffalo say when his son left for college? Answer: Bison
98. A sandwich walks into a bar. What does the bartender say? Answer: Sorry, we don't serve food here
99. What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? Answer: I don't know and I don't care
100. What is the difference between a badly dressed man on a tricycle and a well dressed man on a bicycle? Answer: Attire
101. Two antennas got married. How was the wedding? Answer: The ceremony was dull, but the reception was great
102. What do you set at night, hate in the morning, and hit to buy nine more minutes? Answer: Your alarm clock
103. What do you check a hundred times a day, though it has never once checked on you? Answer: Your phone
104. What does your landlord raise every year without lifting a finger? Answer: The rent
105. What could that hour-long meeting have been? Answer: An email
106. At a meeting, what can run for pages and still be only minutes? Answer: The minutes
107. What ladder do you climb without ever leaving your desk? Answer: The corporate ladder (or career ladder)
108. What do you break at a party to get strangers talking? Answer: The ice
109. What do you hand your boss that takes two weeks to work? Answer: Your notice
110. What bar serves no drinks and can take years to pass? Answer: The bar exam
111. What bar gets lower every round, and nobody orders a drink at it? Answer: The limbo bar
112. What do you file every spring, dread all winter and sometimes get money back from? Answer: Your taxes
113. What has thirty years of interest and no curiosity at all? Answer: A mortgage
114. What grows on a palm tree and is also something you go on with someone you like? Answer: A date
115. What always starts on Monday and is over by Wednesday's donuts? Answer: A diet
116. What membership do people pay for all year and use in January? Answer: A gym membership
117. What do you make on January first and break by February? Answer: A New Year's resolution
118. What list gets longer every time you cross something off? Answer: Your to-do list
119. What relatives did you get for free on your wedding day? Answer: Your in-laws
120. What is the most expensive party you'll ever throw, where you barely get to eat? Answer: Your wedding
121. What do couples fight over every night, even though it covers them both? Answer: The blanket
122. What do you drink to start working and spill the moment you wear white? Answer: Coffee
123. What do you nurse the morning after a big night, though it will never grow up? Answer: A hangover
124. What lies in a cellar for years getting better, until somebody pulls its cork? Answer: Wine
125. What comes at the end of every restaurant meal, though nobody ordered it? Answer: The check (or the bill)
126. What do you leave on the table on purpose when you walk out of a restaurant? Answer: The tip
127. What can you book for dinner but never read? Answer: A table
128. What ride at the airport is only for suitcases? Answer: The baggage carousel
129. What little book gets you out of the country and has the worst photo of you ever taken? Answer: Your passport
130. How can a flight land earlier than it took off? Answer: By crossing time zones
131. What is the one device in the house that two people set to two different temperatures? Answer: The thermostat
132. What drawer in every kitchen holds batteries, tape, one birthday candle and nothing you're looking for? Answer: The junk drawer
133. What do you have a whole cabinet of, though none of them has a lid that fits? Answer: Food containers
134. What do you make up yourself, type every day and still forget? Answer: Your password
135. What do you agree to every time without reading a word of it? Answer: The terms and conditions
136. What fix does tech support always try first? Answer: Turning it off and on again
137. What can you throw, crash and leave early? Answer: A party
138. What gets tied at a wedding even though nobody brought rope? Answer: The knot
139. What can you eat at breakfast and raise at a wedding? Answer: A toast
140. What card game can you lose with nobody else playing? Answer: Solitaire
141. What chess piece can only move forward but dreams of becoming a queen? Answer: A pawn
142. What puzzle hands you clues going across and down, though no crime took place? Answer: A crossword
143. What dance move is also something you do to a chip? Answer: The dip
144. What arrives every month without an invitation and always asks for money? Answer: A bill
145. How many times do you write the digit nine when you count from one to a hundred? Answer: Twenty
146. Turn me on my side and I'm everything. Cut me in half and I'm nothing. What number am I? Answer: Eight
147. How many bricks does it take to finish a brick house? Answer: One: the last one

Tips for a better game

• Offer one hint for the hard riddles, such as the first letter of the answer.
• With kids, let them read the riddles to the adults. They enjoy knowing the answer.
• Start a round with two easy riddles so that everyone has scored before the hard ones.

Questions people ask

What are some good riddles for adults?

Five from this list: What has branches but no leaves, and keeps other people's money? (A bank) You have two coins worth thirty cents together, and one of them is not a nickel. What are they? (A quarter and a nickel. The quarter is the one that isn't a nickel.) What connects two people but touches only one? (A wedding ring) What is the difference between ignorance and apathy? (I don't know and I don't care) What ride at the airport is only for suitcases? (The baggage carousel)

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