Hard riddles
What can travel all around the world while it stays in one corner?
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What is a hard riddle with an answer?
Try this one: the more of these you take, the more you leave behind. The answer is footsteps. The game above has over 100 hard riddles: type your answer and press Check, keep your streak going, and tap Hint only if you must. The list under the game shows every answer.
How to play
- Read the riddle in the box. Pick a category first if you like.
- Type your answer and press Check. Capitals, a or the, and plurals do not matter.
- Stuck? Tap Hint for a clue, or Show answer to give up. Giving up ends your streak.
- Press Next for a new one. Each one comes up once before any repeats.
For a group, choose Pass the phone. One player reads the riddle out loud and can peek at the answer. The others shout guesses, and the reader gives +1 to the first right answer. Next passes the phone to the next reader.
All 104 riddles with answers
Tap Answer under a riddle to see it. Try each one before you look.
What can travel all around the world while it stays in one corner?
Answer
A stamp
The more of these you take, the more of them you leave behind. What are they?
Answer
Footsteps
If you share me, you do not have me anymore. What am I?
Answer
A secret
Say my name, and I am gone. What am I?
Answer
Silence
The more you take out of me, the bigger I get. What am I?
Answer
A hole
The more there is of me, the less you can see. What am I?
Answer
Darkness
What can you break without touching it?
Answer
A promise
Which word gets shorter when you add two letters to it?
Answer
Short
Which word starts with E, ends with E, and holds only one letter?
Answer
An envelope
What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?
Answer
The letter M
I weigh nothing, but even the strongest person cannot hold me for long. What am I?
Answer
Your breath
Feed me and I grow. Give me a drink and I die out. What am I?
Answer
Fire
Where does Thursday come before Wednesday?
Answer
In the dictionary
Rich people need it, poor people have it, and if you eat it, you starve. What is it?
Answer
Nothing
What starts with T, ends with T, and has T in it?
Answer
A teapot
What disappears as soon as you stand up?
Answer
Your lap
Which word is spelled with one letter, and the next four letters are silent?
Answer
Queue
Which word is always spelled wrong in the dictionary?
Answer
Wrong
What goes through towns and over hills, but never moves?
Answer
A road
What has four wheels and flies?
Answer
A garbage truck
What gets sharper the more you use it?
Answer
Your brain
What can fill a whole room but takes up no space?
Answer
Light
I am an odd number. Take one letter away and I become even. What number am I?
Answer
Seven
Which three numbers give the same answer when you add them and when you multiply them?
Answer
1, 2 and 3
I am a three-digit number. My tens digit is five more than my ones digit, and my hundreds digit is eight less than my tens digit. What number am I?
Answer
194
When Maya was 6, her brother was half her age. Maya is 40 now. How old is her brother?
Answer
37
What can you put in a bucket to make it lighter?
Answer
A hole
How far can you walk into a forest?
Answer
Halfway
What has 13 hearts but nothing else inside?
Answer
A deck of cards
Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I?
Answer
Ton
Which word holds every one of the 26 letters?
Answer
Alphabet
I am black when you buy me, red when you use me, and gray when you throw me away. What am I?
Answer
Charcoal
What has its bottom at the top?
Answer
Your legs
What has one head, one foot, and four legs?
Answer
A bed
What runs all around a yard but never moves?
Answer
A fence
What starts with P, ends with E, and has thousands of letters?
Answer
A post office
What is always in front of you, but you can never see it?
Answer
The future
What can you hold in your left hand, but never in your right?
Answer
Your right hand
What do people cut on a table but never eat?
Answer
A deck of cards
I have branches, but no leaves, no trunk, and no fruit. What am I?
Answer
A bank
What has a spine but no bones?
Answer
A book
What tastes things better than it smells them?
Answer
Your tongue
What can you keep after you give it to someone?
Answer
Your word
What is easy to get into but hard to get out of?
Answer
Trouble
What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?
Answer
A person
What has a heart that never beats?
Answer
An artichoke
Two fathers and two sons go fishing. Each one catches a fish, but they catch only 3 fish. How?
Answer
There are only 3 people: grandfather, father and son
I have keys but no locks, space but no room, and you can enter but never go inside. What am I?
Answer
A keyboard
What four-letter word reads the same forward, backward, and upside down?
Answer
NOON
Which English word has three double letters in a row?
Answer
Bookkeeper
What is at the end of a rainbow?
Answer
The letter W
What is in the center of gravity?
Answer
The letter V
Which word of three letters becomes fewer when you add two letters?
Answer
Few
You throw me out when you want to use me, and you take me in when you are done. What am I?
Answer
An anchor
Which bus crossed the ocean?
Answer
Columbus
Which kind of coat goes on wet?
Answer
A coat of paint
What becomes dirtier the whiter it gets?
Answer
A chalkboard
What is harder to catch the faster you run?
Answer
Your breath
How do you make the number one disappear?
Answer
Add a G to make gone
What is 3/7 chicken, 2/3 cat, and 2/4 goat?
Answer
Chicago
I am the only number with as many letters in my name as my value. Which number am I?
Answer
4
How many times can you take 5 away from 25?
Answer
Once
I have six faces and 21 eyes, but I cannot see. What am I?
Answer
A die
When can you add 5 to 9 and get 2?
Answer
On a clock
What is the end of everything?
Answer
The letter G
Before Mount Everest was found, what was the highest mountain on Earth?
Answer
Mount Everest
A rider came to town on Friday, stayed three days, and left on Friday. How?
Answer
The horse is named Friday
Which tire does not move when a car turns right?
Answer
The spare tire
What is red and bad for your teeth?
Answer
A brick
Which is faster, hot or cold?
Answer
Hot
What has four eyes but cannot see?
Answer
Mississippi
What breaks at dawn, and what falls at dusk without a scratch?
Answer
Day and night
What appears once in a year, twice in a week, and never in a day?
Answer
The letter E
Lay me on my side and I go on forever. Cut me in half and I am nothing. What am I?
Answer
8
What is something you will never see again?
Answer
Yesterday
What do the numbers 11, 69, and 88 have in common?
Answer
They read the same upside down
I can be cracked, made, told, and played. What am I?
Answer
A joke
I have no life, but I can die. What am I?
Answer
A battery
I fly without wings and cry without eyes. Where I go, darkness follows. What am I?
Answer
A cloud
I shave every day, but my beard stays the same. Who am I?
Answer
A barber
What can be stolen, mixed up, or changed, but never leaves you all your life?
Answer
Your identity
I am an instrument that you can hear but never see or touch. What am I?
Answer
Your voice
I can be long or short, grown or bought, painted or bare. What am I?
Answer
Fingernails
Which month do soldiers dislike?
Answer
March
Why should you never trust an atom?
Answer
They make up everything
What do you get when you cross a vampire with a snowman?
Answer
Frostbite
What can you hold without ever touching it?
Answer
Your breath
Which seven-letter word becomes longer when you take away its third letter?
Answer
Lounger
Which word starts with IN, ends with AND, and has KST in the middle?
Answer
Inkstand
What is the longest word in the dictionary?
Answer
Smiles
Which ship has two mates but no captain?
Answer
A friendship
Why do plants hate math?
Answer
It gives them square roots
What do you get when you divide the distance around a pumpkin by its width?
Answer
Pumpkin pi
What has six legs but walks on four?
Answer
A horse with a rider
The day before two days after the day before tomorrow is Saturday. What day is it today?
Answer
Friday
What comes next: O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, ?
Answer
N
What comes next: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ?
Answer
13
A doctor gives you 3 pills and says to take one every half hour. How long do the pills last?
Answer
One hour
How many letters are in the alphabet?
Answer
11
Which word looks the same upside down and backward when you write it in capitals?
Answer
SWIMS
Where can you find a dog with no legs?
Answer
Right where you left it
What always goes to bed with its shoes on?
Answer
A horse
I have six letters. Take one away, and twelve is left. What am I?
Answer
Dozens
I am a word of three letters, and I am also a small green seed. Take away my last two letters, and I still sound the same. What am I?
Answer
Pea
Questions
What makes a riddle hard?
A hard riddle leads you to the wrong kind of answer. It uses a word with two meanings, or asks about a word itself, like which word gets shorter when you add two letters (short).
How does the streak work?
Each riddle you solve adds 1 to your streak. Show answer or Next without an answer sets it back to 0. Your best streak stays in this browser.
Do I have to type the exact answer?
No. Capitals, a or the, plurals, and a small typo do not matter, and riddles with more than one fair answer take each of them.
Can I challenge a friend with a hard riddle?
Yes. Press Copy link to this riddle, or Share on a phone. The link opens the same riddle with the answer hidden.
Are these riddles for adults only?
No. They are hard, not rude. Every riddle is clean, so teens and a class can play them too.