101 Riddles for Adults That Will Test Your Smarts
Updated: Apr. 30, 2024
You'll have to stretch your brain to figure out some of these easy, funny and hard riddles for adults
If you’re looking to keep some riddles for adults in your back pocket as a way to strike up a conversation or use as a party trick, you’re in luck. We have plenty of trick questions and riddles that are easy, hard, viral and fun for you right here. The trick will be memorizing a bunch of these so you have them handy (or you can bookmark this page) for when you want to put your friends and family to the test.
First things first: Read through this list to see if you can figure them out. Once you’ve got them all down, it’s time to start sharing. Some of these are definitely stumpers! Scroll through to read all the riddles for adults and see how smart you really are.
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Funny riddles for adults
1. What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?
Answer: Time to fix the fence.
2. What gets wet while drying?
Answer: A towel.
3. What can go up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up?
Answer: An umbrella.
4. What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
Answer: Your left hand.
5. What can you catch, but not throw?
Answer: A cold.
6. What kind of band never plays music?
Answer: A rubber band.
7. What question can you never say yes to?
Answer: “Are you asleep?”
8. What has lots of eyes, but can’t see?
Answer: A potato.
9. What has one eye, but can’t see?
Answer: A needle.
10. What can travel all around the world without leaving its corner?
Answer: A stamp.
11. What two things can you never eat for breakfast?
Answer: Lunch and dinner.
12. What kind of room has no doors or windows?
Answer: A mushroom.
13. What do Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?
Answer: Their middle names.
14. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Answer: Mount Everest, it just wasn’t discovered yet.
15. What is the end of everything?
Answer: The letter “G.”
16. What part of the chicken has the most feathers?
Answer: The outside.
17. What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: Your legs.
18. How far can you walk into the woods?
Answer: Halfway. After that, you’re walking out.
19. What is red and smells like blue paint?
Answer: Red paint.
20. When is a door no longer a door?
Answer: When it’s ajar.
Do you think you’re smarter than a fifth grader? Test your knowledge with the best riddles for kids.
Challenging riddles for adults
21. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. What am I?
Answer: The letter “R.”
22. A plane crashed between the border of France and Belgium. Where were the survivors buried?
Answer: They weren’t. Survivors don’t need to be buried.
23. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?
Answer: Nothing.
24. What runs, but never walks. Murmurs, but never talks. Has a bed, but never sleeps. And has a mouth, but never eats?
Answer: A river.
25. Spelled forward, I’m what you do every day; spelled backward, I’m something you hate. What am I?
Answer: Live.
26. The person who makes it has no need for it; the person who buys it has no use for it. The person who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?
Answer: A coffin.
27. You walk into a room that contains a match, a kerosene lamp, a candle and a fireplace. What would you light first?
Answer: The match.
28. No matter how little or how much you use me, you change me every month. What am I?
Answer: A calendar.
29. If your uncle’s sister is not your aunt, what relation is she to you?
Answer: Your mother.
30. What starts with a T, ends with a T, and has T in it?
Answer: A teapot.
31. The 22nd and 24th presidents of the United States of America had the same parents but were not brothers. How can this be possible
Answer: They were the same man: Grover Cleveland.
32. Sara has four daughters, and each of her daughters has a brother. How many children does Sara have?
Answer: Five, each daughter has the same brother.
33. Take one out and scratch my head, I am now black but once was red. What am I?
Answer: A match.
34. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet only three people are in the car. How?
Answer: They are grandfather, father and son.
35. Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet how you miss me when I have flown. What am I?
Answer: Time.
36: What begins with an “e” and only contains one letter?
Answer: An envelope.
37. 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.
38. A man goes out in heavy rain with nothing to protect him from it. His hair doesn’t get wet. How does he do that?
Answer: He’s bald.
39. What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?
Answer: Silence.
Ready for another challenge? Check out these short riddles that are sure to stump you.
Easy riddles for adults
40. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short.
41. What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg.
42. What kind of coat is always wet when you put it on?
Answer: A coat of paint.
43. How many bananas can you eat if your stomach is empty?
Answer: Just one. After that, your stomach’s not empty anymore.
44. Which letter of the alphabet has the most water?
Answer: “C.”
45. What has 10 letters and starts with gas?
Answer: Automobile.
46. What goes up but never comes down?
Answer: Your age.
47. What tastes better than it smells?
Answer: Your tongue.
48. What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?
Answer: A promise.
49. Which month has 28 days?
Answer: All of them.
50. What has legs, but does not walk?
Answer: A chair.
51. What has many keys but can’t open a single lock?
Answer: A piano.
52. What runs around the whole yard without moving?
Answer: Fence.
53. What goes up and down but doesn’t move?
Answer: A staircase.
54. What is harder to catch the faster you run?
Answer: Your breath.
55. What flowers are kissable?
Answer: Tulips.
56. What has hands, but can’t clap?
Answer: A clock.
Next, give your brain a workout by trying to solve these tricky animal riddles.
Viral riddles for adults
57. Which is heavier: a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?
Answer: They weigh the same.
58. How much dirt is in a hole that’s 2 feet long by 3 feet wide?
Answer: None, it’s a hole.
59. You see me once in June, twice in November, and not at all in May. What am I?
Answer: The letter “E.”
60. What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in 1,000 years?
Answer: The letter “M.”
61. The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it?
Answer: Darkness.
62. What has words, but never speaks?
Answer: A book.
63. What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin.
64. I am weightless, but put me in a bucket, and I will make it lighter. What am I?
Answer: A hole.
65. How many letters are in the alphabet?
Answer: Eleven, “t-h-e-a-l-p-h-a-b-e-t.”
66. What’s at the end of the rainbow?
Answer: The letter “W.”
67. What kind of ship has two mates but no captain?
Answer: A relationship.
68. What has three feet but can’t walk?
Answer: A yardstick.
69. What has a heart that doesn’t beat?
Answer: An artichoke.
70. An electric train is going south at 200 mph. Which way is the smoke blowing?
Answer: There’s no smoke—it’s an electric train.
71. How many bricks does it take a complete a brick building?
Answer: One—the last one.
Ready to really stretch out your brain? These long riddles should do the trick!
Clever riddles for adults
72. What is the difference between a jeweler and a jailer?
Answer: A jeweler sells watches and a jailer watches cells.
73. I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
Answer: A map.
74. I have branches, but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?
Answer: A bank.
75. What belongs to you, but everyone else uses it?
Answer: Your name.
76. If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: Nine.
77. What word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?
Answer: Incorrectly.
78. What word is pronounced the same if you take away four of its five letters?
Answer: Queue.
79. What can fill a room but takes up no space?
Answer: Light.
80. Forward, I am heavy; backward, I am not. What am I?
Answer: Ton.
81. What has a neck but has no head?
Answer: Guitar.
82. Jared’s father has three sons: Snap, Crackle and…?
Answer: Jared.
83. Where does today come before yesterday?
Answer: In the dictionary.
84. What building has the most stories?
Answer: The library.
85. What has many hearts but no other organs?
Answer: A deck of cards.
86. The cowboy rode into town on Friday. He stayed for five days and left on Friday. How?
Answer: The horse’s name is Friday.
87. What do you lose the moment you share it?
Answer: A secret.
88. What gets shorter as it gets older?
Answer: A candle.
89. What has many keys but can’t open any locks?
Answer: A piano.
90. What five-letter word typed in all capital letters can be read the same upside down?
Answer: SWIMS.
If you thought that one was tricky, try solving this riddle about someone’s mother having four sons.
Logic riddles for adults
91. What type of cheese is made backward?
Answer: Edam.
92. A bus driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street. He passes police officers, but they don’t stop him. Why?
Answer: He’s walking.
93. What grows when you feed it but dies when you water it?
Answer: A fire.
94. What is taken before you can get it?
Answer: A photo.
95. What do you bury when it’s alive and dig up when it’s dead?
Answer: A plant.
96. What’s full of holes but still holds water?
Answer: A sponge.
97. What’s always on the ground but is never dirty.
Answer: A shadow.
98. What gets smaller every time it takes a bath?
Answer: A bar of soap.
99. What do you buy to eat but never consume?
Answer: Flatware.
100. What can’t talk but will reply when spoken to?
Answer: An echo.
101. What has many teeth but cannot bite?
Answer: A comb.
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Originally Published: June 04, 2021
