Tricky Riddles with Answers
Tricky riddles play dirty. The obvious answer is almost always wrong, and that's the point. Slow down, question your first guess, then tap to see if you got played.
Tricky riddles with answers for adults
Grown-up brains fall hardest for these. The obvious guess is planted on purpose.
Tricky questions that punish fast guesses
Break a promise without touching it. Watch your age go up and never come down. Slow readers win here.
Longer tricky riddles to tell out loud
A few of these are little stories, like the locked room with a bed, a calendar, and a piano. Great for parties.
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1. What can you break without touching it, dropping it, or even seeing it?
Show answer
A promise.
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2. A farmer had 17 sheep. All but 9 died. How many sheep are left?
Show answer
Nine. All but nine means nine survived.
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3. Two friends play five games of checkers on the same afternoon. Each of them wins three games, and not one game ends in a draw. How?
Need a hint?
Nobody said they sat at the same board.
Show answer
They were not playing against each other. Each won three games against other people.
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4. One egg takes ten minutes to hard boil. How long does it take to hard boil three eggs in the same pot of water?
Show answer
Ten minutes. All three eggs cook at the same time.
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5. A plane crashes right on the border between two countries. Where do they bury the survivors?
Show answer
Nowhere. You do not bury survivors.
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6. You wind up an old fashioned alarm clock, set it for nine, and fall asleep at eight in the evening. How much sleep do you get before it rings?
Need a hint?
The clock has no idea what AM means.
Show answer
One hour. A wind up clock cannot tell morning from evening, so it rings at nine that same night.
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7. How can a man go eight days without sleeping and feel fine?
Show answer
He sleeps at night. The riddle only mentioned days.
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8. A pet shop promises that its parrot repeats every word it hears. A week later the buyer wants a refund because the bird has not spoken once, yet the shop told no lie. How?
Need a hint?
The promise was about hearing, not speaking.
Show answer
The parrot is deaf. It repeats every word it hears, and it hears nothing.
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9. Why are 2019 pennies worth more than 2018 pennies?
Need a hint?
They are counts, not dates.
Show answer
Read them as amounts, not years. Two thousand nineteen pennies is one penny more than two thousand eighteen pennies.
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10. A rooster lays an egg on the very top of a slanted roof. Which side does the egg roll down?
Show answer
Neither. Roosters do not lay eggs.
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11. What kind of dress can never be worn?
Show answer
An address.
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12. What can you always find at the end of a rainbow?
Show answer
The letter W. Look at the end of the word rainbow.
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13. An electric train is heading north at 100 miles per hour with a strong wind blowing from the west. Which way does the smoke blow?
Show answer
There is no smoke. Electric trains do not produce any.
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14. Two boys are born to the same mother on the same day, in the same month and year, yet they are not twins. How can that be?
Show answer
They are two of a set of triplets.
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15. Why can a man living in New York not be buried in Chicago?
Show answer
Because he is still living. You cannot bury a living man.
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16. What question can you never honestly answer yes to?
Show answer
Are you asleep yet? If you answer, the answer is no.
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17. How many bricks does it take to complete a brick building?
Show answer
Just one. The last brick completes it.
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18. A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. A little later, the two of them enjoy a lovely dinner together. How?
Show answer
She shot a photo of him and developed the film in a darkroom tray.
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19. You see a boat filled with people, yet there is not a single person on board. How is that possible?
Show answer
Everyone on board is married. There is not a single person among them.
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20. A man jumps out of an airplane with no parachute and walks away without a scratch. How?
Show answer
The plane was parked on the runway the whole time.
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21. What disappears the moment you stand up?
Show answer
Your lap.
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22. Which word is always spelled incorrectly in every dictionary?
Show answer
The word incorrectly.
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23. Railroad crossing, watch out for cars. Can you spell that without any Rs?
Show answer
T-H-A-T. The word that has no R in it.
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24. A dog stands on one bank of a wide river and its owner calls from the other side. The dog crosses without a bridge or a boat and does not get wet. How?
Need a hint?
Think about the season.
Show answer
The river is frozen. The dog trots straight across the ice.
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25. What has a foot on each end and another foot in the middle?
Show answer
A yardstick.
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26. What kind of tree can you carry in your hand?
Show answer
A palm.
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27. What has a head and a tail, is brown, and has no legs?
Show answer
A penny. Heads on one side, tails on the other.
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28. What is the very last thing you take off before you climb into bed?
Show answer
Your feet, off the floor.
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29. Which building has the most stories?
Show answer
The library. Every shelf is full of them.
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30. What kind of coat is best put on wet?
Show answer
A coat of paint.
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31. A farmer keeps one haystack in the east field and two haystacks in the west field. If he combines them all, how many haystacks does he have?
Show answer
One. Pile them together and you get a single big haystack.
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32. Ten children walk to school huddled under one small umbrella, yet none of them gets wet. How is that possible?
Show answer
It is not raining.
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33. What goes up every year but never comes back down?
Show answer
Your age.
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34. Name three keys that cannot open any lock.
Show answer
A monkey, a donkey, and a turkey.
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35. What has its bottom at the top?
Show answer
Your legs. The bottom sits at the top of them.
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36. How do you make the number one disappear?
Show answer
Add the letter G in front of it and it is gone.
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37. A hardware store sells 1 for one dollar, 12 for two dollars, and 144 for three dollars. What is it selling?
Need a hint?
You buy them one digit at a time.
Show answer
House numbers. The price depends on how many digits you need.
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38. You are running a long race, and just before the finish line you overtake the runner in second place. What position are you in now?
Show answer
Second place. You took the spot of the person you passed, not the leader's.
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39. What invention lets you look straight through a solid wall?
Show answer
A window.
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40. What kind of cup cannot hold any water?
Show answer
A cupcake.
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41. A man in a small town married twenty different women. None of them died and he never divorced, yet he broke no law. How?
Show answer
He is a minister. He performed the weddings, he was not the groom.
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42. You have two coins that add up to 30 cents, and one of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?
Show answer
A quarter and a nickel. One of them, the quarter, is not a nickel. The other one is.
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43. A father and his son are in a car accident. The boy is rushed into surgery, but the surgeon says: I cannot operate on him, he is my son. How can that be?
Show answer
The surgeon is his mother.
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44. How many animals of each kind did Moses take onto the ark?
Show answer
None. It was Noah who built the ark, not Moses.
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45. If a red house is made of red bricks and a blue house is made of blue bricks, what is a greenhouse made of?
Show answer
Glass. A greenhouse is for growing plants.
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46. You walk into a dark room holding one match. Inside there is a candle, an oil lamp, and a fireplace. Which do you light first?
Show answer
The match. Nothing else can be lit before it.
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47. What is the longest word in the dictionary?
Show answer
Smiles. There is a whole mile between the first and last letter.
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48. A truck driver goes the wrong way down a one way street, passes five police officers, and none of them stops him. Why?
Show answer
He is walking, not driving.
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49. Which is correct: the yolk of the egg is white, or the yolk of the egg are white?
Show answer
Neither. Yolks are yellow.
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50. A man dressed all in black walks down a country lane at night. A black car with its headlights off comes straight at him, yet the driver swerves in time. How did the driver see him?
Show answer
It was daytime. Nothing in the story said it was night for the driver, only that the man wore black.
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51. A waiter carries a tray of twelve drinks up three flights of stairs. On the top step he trips, and the whole tray flips upside down. Not one drop is spilled. How?
Show answer
Every drink was still sealed in its bottle. Nothing had been opened yet.
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52. What can you serve but never eat?
Show answer
A tennis ball.
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53. Why can you never take a photo of a man with a wooden leg?
Show answer
Because a wooden leg cannot take photos. You need a camera.
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54. How do you spell cow in fourteen letters?
Show answer
SEE O DOUBLE YOU.
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55. A tall delivery truck gets wedged tight under a low bridge and the tow trucks cannot pull it free. A kid on a bike solves the problem in ten seconds. How?
Need a hint?
Do not raise the bridge. Lower the truck.
Show answer
Let some air out of the tires. The truck sinks a few inches and drives out.
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56. Which side of a cat has the most fur?
Show answer
The outside.
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57. What can you put between 7 and 8 to get a number bigger than 7 but smaller than 8?
Show answer
A decimal point. 7.5 sits right between them.
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58. Is it legal for a man to marry his widow's sister?
Show answer
It does not matter. If his wife is a widow, the man is dead.
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59. Five frogs sit on a log and one of them decides to jump into the pond. How many frogs are left on the log?
Show answer
Five. Deciding to jump is not the same as jumping.
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60. A rope ladder hangs over the side of a boat with its bottom rung touching the water. The tide rises one foot every hour. After three hours, how many rungs are underwater?
Show answer
None. The boat rises with the tide, and the ladder rises with the boat.
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61. A man goes out for a walk in heavy rain with no umbrella, no hat, and no hood, yet not a single hair on his head gets wet. How?
Show answer
He is bald.
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62. How can a pocket be completely empty and still have something in it?
Show answer
It can have a hole in it.
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63. What goes up as soon as the rain comes down?
Show answer
An umbrella.
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64. You are locked in a room that contains only a bed, a calendar, and a piano. How do you eat, drink, and get out?
Need a hint?
Each object hides a pun.
Show answer
Eat the dates from the calendar, drink from the springs of the bed, and use the keys of the piano to unlock the door.
Your score
FAQ about Tricky Riddles with Answers
What makes a riddle tricky instead of hard?
Misdirection. A tricky riddle hands you a wrong answer that feels right, then hides the real one in plain sight. Hard riddles lean more on layered logic and obscure wordplay.
Are these tricky riddles okay for kids?
Yes, everything here is family friendly. Younger kids may need help with the wordplay, but teens usually hold their own.
Do the tricky riddles come with answers?
Every one of the 64 riddles reveals its answer on tap. Eight of the trickiest also carry a hint, so you can get a nudge before you give up.
If you enjoyed getting fooled, our Brain Teasers with Answers pull the same tricks in shorter form. Ready for real pain? The Hard Riddles with Answers collection goes several steps further.