78 Riddles for Adults That Will Test Your Smarts
Updated: Aug. 03, 2023You'll have to really stretch your brain to figure out some of these easy, funny, and hard riddles for grown-ups!
If you’re looking for some riddles for adults to keep in your back pocket as a way to strike up a conversation or pull out 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 need it) 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 them all 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 is the difference between a jeweler and a jailer?
Answer: A jeweler sells watches and a jailer watches cells.
4. What can go up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up?
Answer: An umbrella.
5. What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
Answer: Your left hand.
6. What can you catch, but not throw?
Answer: A cold.
7. What kind of band never plays music?
Answer: A rubber band.
8. What has many teeth, but cannot bite?
Answer: A comb.
9. What has lots of eyes, but can’t see?
Answer: A potato.
10. What has one eye, but can’t see?
Answer: A needle.
11. What can travel all around the world without leaving its corner?
Answer: A stamp.
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12. What two things can you never eat for breakfast?
A: Lunch and dinner.
13. What kind of room has no doors or windows?
Answer: A mushroom.
14. What do Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?
Answer: Their middle names.
15. Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Answer: Mt. Everest, it just wasn’t discovered yet.
16. What is the end of everything?
Answer: The letter “G.”
17. What part of the chicken has the most feathers?
Answer: The outside.
18. What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: Your legs.
19. How far can you walk into the woods?
Answer: Halfway — after that, you’re walking out.
20. What is red and smells like blue paint?
Answer: Red paint.
21. When is a door no longer a door?
Answer: When it’s ajar.
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Hard riddles for adults
22. Two in a corner, one in a room, zero in a house, but one in a shelter. What am I?
Answer: The letter “R.”
23. 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.
24. Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it you die. What is it?
Answer: Nothing.
25. 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.
26. I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. I have water, but no fish. What am I?
Answer: A map.
27. Spelled forwards I’m what you do every day, spelled backward I’m something you hate. What am I?
Answer: Live.
28. The person who makes it has no need of 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.
29. 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.
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30. No matter how little or how much you use me, you change me every month. What am I?
Answer: A calendar.
31. I have branches, but no fruit, trunk, or leaves. What am I?
Answer: Bank.
32. What belongs to you, but everyone else uses it.
Answer: Your name.
33. If your uncle’s sister is not your aunt, what relation is she to you?
Answer: Your mother.
34. What starts with a T, ends with a T, and has T in it?
Answer: A teapot.
35. 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.
36. If two’s company, and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: Nine.
37. 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.
38. Which is heavier: a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?
Answer: They weigh the same.
39. Take one out and scratch my head, I am now black but once was red. What am I?
Answer: A match.
40. Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
Answer: They are grandfather, father, and son.
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41. Until I am measured, I am not known. Yet how you miss me, When I have flown. What am I?
Answer: Time.
42. How much dirt is in a hole that’s two feet by three feet?
Answer: None, it’s a hole.
43: What begins with an “e” and only contains one letter?
Answer: An envelope.
44. 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.
45. You see me once in June, twice in November, and not at all in May. What am I?
Answer: The letter “E.”
46. What word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?
Answer: Incorrectly.
47. 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.
48. What word is pronounced the same if you take away four of its five letters?
Answer: Queue.
49. What is so fragile that saying its name breaks it?
Answer: Silence.
50. What can fill a room but takes up no space?
Answer: Light.
51. Forwards I am heavy, backward I am not. What am I?
Answer: Ton.
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Easy riddles for adults
52. What five-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer: Short.
53. What has to be broken before you can use it?
Answer: An egg.
54. What has a neck but has no head?
Answer: Guitar.
55. What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in 1,000 years?
Answer: The letter “M.”
56. What kind of coat is always wet when you put it on?
Answer: A coat of paint.
57. How many bananas can you eat if your stomach is empty?
Answer: Just one—after that, your stomach’s not empty anymore.
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58. Which letter of the alphabet has the most water?
Answer: C.
59. What has ten letters and starts with gas?
Answer: Automobile.
60. What goes up but never comes down?
Answer: Your age.
61. What tastes better than it smells?
Answer: Your tongue.
62. Jared’s father has three sons: Snap, Crackle and…?
Answer: Jared.
If you thought that one was tricky, try solving this riddle about someone’s mother having four sons.
63. What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?
Answer: A promise.
64. Which month has 28 days?
Answer: All of them.
65. What has legs, but does not walk?
Answer: A chair.
66. The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it?
Answer: Darkness.
67. What has many keys but can’t open a single lock?
Answer: A piano.
68. What runs around the whole yard without moving?
Answer: Fence.
69. Where does today come before yesterday?
Answer: In the dictionary.
70. What goes up and down but doesn’t move?
Answer: A staircase.
71. What is harder to catch the faster you run?
Answer: Your breath.
72. What flowers are kissable?
Answer: Tulips.
73. What has hands, but can’t clap?
Answer: A clock.
74. What has words, but never speaks?
Answer: A book.
75. What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin.
76. What building has the most stories?
Answer: The library.
77. I am weightless but put me in a bucket and I will make it lighter. What am I?
Answer: A hole.
78. What has many hearts but no other organs?
Answer: A deck of cards.
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Next, give your brain a workout by trying to solve these tricky animal riddles.
