Hardest Riddles In the World to Tease Your Brain

What are Riddles?

Riddles are statements, questions, or phrases with underlying meanings that are put forth as puzzles. They serve as a fun way of challenging your mind and intellect. There are two primary forms of riddles, namely enigmas and conundrums. Before moving to the hardest riddles in the world, let’s learn a little more about the types.

Types of Riddles

• Enigmas: These are riddles expressed using metaphorical or allegorical language. Enigmas require creativity and careful thinking for their solution. 
• Conundrums: These are riddles that rely on puns in the question or the answer. 

Riddles come in different difficulty levels, ranging from straightforward to head-scratcher ones. They require plenty of lateral thinking and reasoning to solve, which can be a great way to exercise your brain. So, for those who like a good challenge, here is a specially compiled list of the hardest riddles in the world. 

Top 30 Hardest Riddles in the World 

Food for thought

• Riddle: You buy me to eat, but you never eat me. What am I?
• Answer: Plates and bowls.

Cut like a knife

• Riddle: What can cut like a knife, sting like a bee, bite like a lion. Carry truth and lies but never move or speak. What are we?
• Answer: Words.

Guess who?

• Riddle: Little Jimmy is Seven years old. I go everywhere with him. I cast no shadow and breathe no air. I don’t weigh anything and I can’t be seen, heard or touched. Who am I?
• Answer: Little Jimmy’s imaginary friend.

Oh, Brother

• Riddle: Derek, Darren and Dean all call Dennis their brother. Dennis is an only child. Who are we?
• Answer: Derek, Darren, Dean and Dennis are all religious Monks.

Emotional moments

• Riddle: I am present at the beginning of love, the start of life and I am the end of evil. What am I?
• Answer: The letter ‘L’.

Simple words

• Riddle: How many words are in a Dictionary?
• Answer: Two. ‘A’ & ‘Dictionary’

Flying without wings

• Riddle: What has wheels and flies?
• Answer: A garbage bin with wheels.

No judgement

• Riddle: I sit above you without judging you and can protect you and keep you warm. What am I?
• Answer: A hat.

Healing and Killing

• Riddle: I can heal and kill without touching you. What am I?
• Answer: Time.

Day after Day

• Riddle: When is the only time that today and tomorrow come before yesterday?
• Answer: In a Dictionary.

Face up to it

• Riddle: I have a face and hands but my hands can never touch my face. What am I?
• Answer: A clock.

Head over heels

• Riddle: What can bring tears to your eyes, make you move faster, make you move slower and knock you over?
• Answer: The wind.

The riddle of Samuel

• Riddle: Samuel’s father has three sons: David, Andrew and..?
• Answer: Samuel.

Life is short

• Riddle: I get shorter as I get older. What am I?
• Answer: A candle.

Diamonds are forever

• Riddle: What has fifteen diamonds but isn’t rich?
• Answer: A deck of cards.

Rustling leaves

• Riddle: What has leaves but no branches?
• Answer: A book.

Smashing times

• Riddle: How can you drop a glass onto a hard floor without smashing it?
• Answer: A glass won’t smash a hard floor!

Family matters

• Riddle: There are two fathers and two sons at a table but there are only three people sitting at the table. How is this possible?
• Answer: They are a Grandfather, Father and Son.

Animal-tastic

• Riddle: I have horses, a cat and a trunk. What am I?
• Answer: A car. (Horse power, Catalytic converter and a trunk for your bags.)

Numerology

• Riddle: When does 11 + 3 = 2?
• Answer: on a clock.

Check out: Hardest 5-letter words in English | Learn how to simplify them

Lost and found

• Riddle: Why is it that when you have lost something, it’s always in the last place you look?
• Answer: Because you stop looking when you find it.

Don’t Know?

• Riddle: What has no beginning, middle or end?
• Answer: A doughnut.

Light of my life

• Riddle: You walk into a dark room. In the room there is only an oil lantern, a candle and a fireplace. Which do you light first?
• Answer: You can’t. You don’t have anything to light them with.

Math Genius

• Riddle: Which is correct? 15 plus 118 is 134 Or 118 plus 15 is 134?
• Answer: Neither are correct. 15 plus 118 is 133.

Tools of the trade

• Riddle: Where can you find a hammer and an anvil that are too small for human hands to use?
• Answer: In the human ear. They are the smallest bones in the body.

Life

• Riddle: During our life, what are two things we will do but will never remember?
• Answer: Breathe our first breath and last breath.

Burning bright

• Riddle: Which candles burn longer. Church candles or Birthday cake candles?
• Answer: Neither. Candles only burn shorter.

Shopping

• Riddle: When I was going to my local shop I saw a man and his wife and their two children. How many people were going to the shop?
• Answer: Only 1 person was going to the shop, me.

Heads or tails

• Riddle: What loses its head in the morning and gets it back at night?
• Answer: A pillow.

Around the world

• Riddle: Seymour wants to travel around the world. He had only travelled halfway around the world before he had to start travelling back home. Why was this?
• Answer: If you travel halfway around the world away from your starting point the next half you start to travel back towards your starting point.

Want more? Keep looking then. 

Priceless

• Really Hard Riddle: What can be given and can be accepted, is worth a great deal but costs nothing yet has no monetary value?
• Answer: An apology.

Moving on

• Tricky Riddle: What can run but never walk?
• Answer: Water.

Word crazy

• Riddle: What word is pronounced the same when you take away four of its five letters?
• Answer: Queue.

Monthly Madness

• Riddle: Peter drinks more water in January than in February but the same amount of water in August as in January. Why?
• Answer: There are more days in January than February and the same amount of days in January and August.

Royal flush

• Riddle: In a room there is a king, a queen and two twins but nobody is in the room? How is this?
• Answer: They are all beds.

Broken

• Riddle: What breaks every day but can never be fixed?
• Answer: Dawn.

An opener

• Riddle: What can be opened and closed but no human has ever passed through it?
• Answer: A mouth.

Expensive item

• Riddle: What is the most expensive item that we buy, we own it but we never get to see it.
• Answer: A coffin

Sisters are doing it for themselves

• Riddle: Mary, Anne, Martha and Isobel are all best friends and sisters but each of them is an only child. How is this possible?
• Answer: They are all Nuns.

Unbreakable

• Tough Riddle: I bend but I never break. What am I?
• Answer: Light.

Pick up a penguin

• Riddle: Why are penguins not afraid of being eaten by polar bears?
• Answer: Penguins live at the North pole and Polar bears at the South pole.

Liar Liar

• Riddle: Sam Spade was telling his friends about his recent stay at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. He told them he won a thousand dollars shortly before returning to room 420 on the thirteenth floor. His friend Jerry immediately knew that Sam was lying about going to Vegas and staying at the Tropicana. How did Jerry know that Sam was lying?
• Answer: The Tropicana Casino and Hotel doesn’t have a 13th floor as the number 13 is thought to be unlucky and no hotels have room 420 as the numbers get stolen because of its connection to Cannabis. Sam was indeed lying.

Your numbers up

• Riddle: Which is the only number that when divided by itself does not equal 1?
• Answer: Zero. Every number apart from 0 equals 1 when divided by itself.

Con Artist

• Riddle: A widow received a phone call from a stranger saying that her recently deceased husband owed the caller thousands of dollars in unpaid bills for photographs of naked women and if she didn’t pay him the money he would go to the newspapers and expose her dead husband to shame. The widow immediately told the caller that she wouldn’t pay him the money as she knew he was lying. Why was the widow so confident that the man was trying to extort money and was a liar?
• Answer: Her deceased husband had been blind from birth and so wouldn’t have ordered pictures of naked women.

Murderous intent

• Riddle: A rich woman was murdered on Christmas day at her mansion in London. The police interviewed her husband and the staff at her mansion. They all gave alibis. Her husband was watching The Queen’s speech on TV, The cook was preparing the Christmas dinner, The Butler was helping the maid clean the dining room and the Gardener was cutting the grass in the back garden. The police arrested and charged the Gardener with murder. How did the police Detective know The Gardener killed her?
• Answer: Grass doesn’t grow in the wintertime so doesn’t need cutting.

Twin trouble

• Riddle: Mario and Mark are twins. They were born 10 minutes apart. Mario is the eldest and has had 20 birthdays. Mark is the younger but has only had 5 birthdays? Why?
• Answer: Mario was born at 11.55 on February 28th in a leap year and Mark was born at 12.05 on February 29th on a leap day so Mark has only had 5 Birthdays.

Lions, Tigers and Bears

• Riddle: Although Lions are feared and fierce creatures, they never attack Tigers or bears. Why is this?
• Answer: Lions are native to Africa and there are no Tigers or Bear species in Africa.

Changes

• Tough Riddle: What is something that you have but you can’t touch, you can change whenever you want and you use everyday but have never seen me. What am I?
• Answer: Your mind.

More or less

• Riddle: The more you see of me, the less you can see. I visit you everyday. What am I?
• Answer: Darkness.

Riddled full of holes

• Tricky Riddle: I am full of holes but I am great at holding water. What am I?
• Answer: A Sponge.

Discover: 20 easy quiz questions and answers

Look who came this far, yes that’s right You! Last 10 bonus riddles for you. 

Sticky not sticky

• Riddle: I stick so strongly, yet I am not sticky in the slightest. What am I?
• Answer: A magnet.

Open and closed

• Riddle: Why can I go through a door closed but not go through a door open?
• Answer: Because I’m an umbrella.

Ice Ice Baby

• Riddle: You take 6 cubes of ice from the freezer. Remove 2 and add 1. You wait half an hour and put them back in the freezer. How many Ice cubes do you have now?
• Answer: You have 1 Ice cube as they will have melted and refrozen as 1.

Gone In 60 Seconds

• Riddle: Imagine that you are locked in a pitch black room with no windows or doors. You can’t see, hear or smell anything. You have 60 seconds to escape the room. How do you escape from the room?
• Answer: Stop imagining you are in the room!

Lost in the forest

• Riddle: You find yourself lost in a vast forest with no compass, no cell phone in the middle of the day. You must return to the safety of the campsite and your friends before nightfall, and the wild animals descend. Your camp is in the North of the vast forest. How do you determine which way is North?
• Answer: If you look at the tree trunks, the side of the tree with moss growing is facing North as Moss grows facing North.

Riddle O’clock

• Riddle: There is an old saying that goes, ‘Even a stopped clock is right twice a day’! What type of clock is right only once a day?
• Answer: A digital clock as the 24-hour clock shows the time as 00:00 to 23:59

Spelling Bee

• Riddle: Which word in English is spelled backwards?
• Answer: Backwards.

Strange Creatures

• Riddle: What is at the head of a Llama and at the tail of a seagull?
• Answer: Double L.

Little Jimmy goes home

• Riddle: Little Jimmy was on an island in the lake outside his house. He heard his mother calling him. Little Jimmy crosses the lake immediately without getting wet and without having a boat or using a bridge. How did Little Jimmy do it?
• Answer: He flew. Little Jimmy is a bird.

Big and tall

• Super Hard Riddle: What can be the same size as the world’s tallest person but weighs nothing?
• Answer: The world’s tallest person’s shadow.

Explore: Harry Potter Quiz | Fun trivia for potterheads

Key Takeaways

• Riddles are brain teasers that give you a lot to think about.
• There are two primary forms of riddles, namely, enigmas and conundrums. 
• However, you can find several secondary types, too, such as wordplay, mathematical riddles, etc. 
• While the ones mentioned above are just the top 10 hardest riddles, there are several others that you must check out.
• Riddles are great as activities when you are bored.
• Just keep solving riddles whenever you come across one to hone your mind and make your brain sharper. 

We hope you enjoyed reading this blog. For more such fun and interesting blogs, check out our blog page! Also, you can comment below or reach out to us to share your thoughts.

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FAQs

Ques 1: Which are some of the hardest riddles in the world for kids?

Answer 1: Some of the hardest riddles in the world for kids include:

1. Who has golden hair and stands in the corner? – A broom
2. A bus driver goes the wrong way on a one-way street. He passes the cops, but they don’t stop him. Why? – He was walking
3. If you have it and you show it to other people, I’m gone. What am I? – A secret.

Ques 2: How are solving riddles beneficial?

Answer 2: Solving riddles is a great way of applying and testing your lateral thinking, logical reasoning, and critical thinking skills. They help you gain a different, out-of-the-box perspective on things. 

Ques 3: What are the different forms of riddles?

Answer 3: Riddles are available in several forms, varying from carefully worded mathematical questions and wordplay to simple logical reasoning and vocabulary puzzles. 

Ques 4: What are the characteristics of riddles?

Answer 4: Some key features of a riddle include- 

• Poetic functions
• Disoriented things, such as rhetorical texts, clues, etc.
• Formulae
• Syntax, semantics, lexicon, and other linguistic aspects. 

Ques 5: What is the meaning of the word riddles?

Answer 5:  A riddle can be a phrase, a statement, or a question with a hidden meaning. It is presented as a fun problem to be solved. 

Ques 6: What goes from Z to A?

Answer 6:  The correct answer is—Zebra. 

WRITTEN BY

Aastha

Sr. Content Writer

Aastha Arya is a Senior Content Writer at iSchoolConnect who writes about topics covering study abroad trends, exclusive news updates and prolific college courses. She has a 4-year of experience in this field and also likes to keep tabs on recent events, visa policy changes, and many other concerns that affect international students.

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