Riddles
Riddles
What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?
Answer: Time to fix the fence.
What gets wet while drying?
Answer: A towel.
What can go up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up?
Answer: An umbrella.
What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
Answer: Your left hand.
What can you catch, but not throw?
Answer: A cold.
What kind of band never plays music?
Answer: A rubber band.
What question can you never say yes to?
Answer: “Are you asleep?”
What has lots of eyes, but can’t see?
Answer: A potato.
What has one eye, but can’t see?
Answer: A needle.
What can travel all around the world without leaving its corner?
Answer: A stamp.
What two things can you never eat for breakfast?
Answer: Lunch and dinner.
What kind of room has no doors or windows?
Answer: A mushroom.
What do Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh have in common?
Answer: Their middle names.
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Answer: Mount Everest, it just wasn’t discovered yet.
What is the end of everything?
Answer: The letter “G.”
What part of the chicken has the most feathers?
Answer: The outside.
What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: Your legs.
How far can you walk into the woods?
Answer: Halfway. After that, you’re walking out.
What is red and smells like blue paint?
Answer: Red paint.
When is a door no longer a door?
Answer: When it’s ajar.
Riddle: What has keys but can’t open locks?
Answer: A piano.
Riddle: I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?
Answer: An echo.
Riddle: What has a neck but no head, a body but no legs, and arms but no hands?
Answer: A shirt
Riddle: I’m tall when I’m young, and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?
Answer: A candle.
Riddle: The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?
Answer: Footprints.
Riddle: What has cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and rivers but no water?
Answer: A map.
What can you hold in your right hand, but never in your left hand?
Answer: Your left hand.
What can travel all around the world without leaving its corner?
Answer: A stamp.
What kind of room has no doors or windows?
Answer: A mushroom.
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
Answer: Mount Everest, it just wasn’t discovered yet.
What part of the chicken has the most feathers?
Answer: The outside.
When is a door no longer a door?
Answer: When it’s ajar.
Long Form Riddles
Riddle: The Man in the Elevator
A man lives on the tenth floor of a building. Every day, he takes the elevator down to the ground floor to go to work. When he returns, he takes the elevator to the seventh floor and walks up the stairs to his apartment. Why does he do this?
Answer: The man is too short to reach the button for the tenth floor in the elevator. He can reach the ground floor button in the morning, but when returning, he can only reach the seventh-floor button, so he walks the rest of the way.
Riddle: The Missing Dollar
Three friends go to a restaurant and split a $30 bill equally, each paying $10. After they pay, the waiter realizes the bill should only be $25. He gives $5 back to the group, and they decide to split it, taking $1 each, with $2 left over, which they leave as a tip. Now, each friend has paid $9 ($10 minus $1), so the total paid is $27 ($9 × 3). Adding the $2 tip makes $29. Where is the missing dollar?
Answer: There is no missing dollar. The $27 includes the $25 bill and the $2 tip. The confusion arises from incorrectly adding the tip to the $27 to reach $30. The $30 originally paid is accounted for as $25 (bill) + $5 (returned), and the $5 splits as $3 (returned to friends) + $2 (tip).
Riddle: Crossing the River
A farmer needs to cross a river with a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. His boat can only carry himself and one item at a time. If left alone, the wolf will eat the goat, and the goat will eat the cabbage. How can he get all three across the river safely?
Answer: The farmer takes the goat across first and leaves it on the other side. He returns alone and takes the wolf across. He brings the goat back to the original side. He takes the cabbage across and leaves it with the wolf. He returns alone and takes the goat across.
Riddle: The Three Houses
There are three houses in a row, numbered 1, 2, and 3 from left to right. Each house is painted a different color: red, blue, or green, and each has a different pet: cat, dog, or bird. Clues: The green house is immediately to the left of the red house. The cat lives in house 2. The bird lives in the blue house. The dog lives in the green house. Which house is which color, and which pet lives in each?
Answer: House 1 is green with the dog, house 2 is red with the cat, house 3 is blue with the bird.
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
Answer: One. The narrator, who is going to St. Ives, is the only one explicitly mentioned as traveling to St. Ives. The man, wives, sacks, cats, and kits are met along the way, implying they are not necessarily going to St. Ives.