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Try the world’s hardest brainteasers with strategies for riddle-solving
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What is the world’s hardest riddle? Many suggest it’s the Harvard riddle, also known as the “I turn polar bears white” riddle. However, that’s not the only brainteaser renowned for its difficulty. Below, find 30 of the hardest riddles in the world, with answers and explanations for how to find their solutions. See how many you can solve!
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Other Challenging Riddles to Solve
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1Riddle: You see a boat filled with people, then look away. It has not sunk, but when you look again, you don’t see a single person on the boat. Why? [2] X Research source
- Answer: All the people on the boat are married.
- Explanation: This riddle plays on the word “single,” meaning not in a relationship, and “single” as in “one.”
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2Riddle: You’re in a dark room with a candle, a wood stove, and a gas lamp. You only have one match. What do you light first?
- Answer: The match.
- Explanation: While most people try to solve this riddle by choosing from the candle, wood stove, and gas lamp, to light any of them, you must technically light the match first.
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3Riddle: Two men are in a desert. Both are wearing backpacks. One man is dead, and the other is alive. The man who’s alive has his backpack open. The man who’s dead has his backpack closed. What’s in the dead man’s backpack?
- Answer: A parachute.
- Explanation: The riddle implies both men had parachutes in their backpacks, but only the living man deployed his parachute when they exited their aircraft. The other man’s backpack is closed, meaning his parachute didn’t deploy, which is why he died.
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4Riddle: Poor people have it. Rich people need it. If you eat it, you die. What is it?
- Answer: Nothing.
- Explanation: Poor people have nothing (or close to nothing), while rich people need nothing because they can afford everything they need. If you eat nothing, you starve and die.
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5Riddle: What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet in the evening? [3] X Research source
- Answer: Man.
- Explanation: As Oedipus explains in the myth, man crawls in the morning of his life when he’s a baby, walks on two feet in the afternoon of his life as an adult, and uses a cane (the third foot) in the evening of his life when he’s old.
- The riddle of the Sphinx comes from Greek mythology. As legend goes, a famous sphinx posed it to Oedipus, who was the first person to solve it.
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6Riddle: OTTFFSS. What are the next three letters in this combination, according to its pattern? [4] X Research source
- Answer: ENT.
- Explanation: Every letter in OTTFFSS represents the first letter of a spelled-out number, starting with the number one. So after one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven, the next three letters should be E, N, and T to represent eight, nine, and ten.
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7Riddle: You can ask this question all day long, but you always get a different answer. Yet all the answers will be correct. What is the question? [5] X Research source
- Answer: “What time is it?”
- Explanation: Throughout the day, the time changes, so individual answers to the question of “What time is it?” also change. However, you always get the correct answer based on the time at that moment.
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8Riddle: John is six feet tall, he works at a butcher’s shop, and he wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?
- Answer: Meat.
- Explanation: “What does he weigh?” refers to his job, not his own weight. Knowing John’s height and shoe size isn’t enough to calculate his weight. The riddle plays on the fact that butchers weigh meat as part of their daily tasks.
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9Riddle: You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What is it?
- Answer: Corn on the cob.
- Explanation: You throw away the husk of the corn to cook the corn that’s inside the husk. You then eat the outside of the corn cob—the corn kernels—and throw away the cob when you’re done.
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10Riddle: What is brown with a tail and a head, but no legs?
- Answer: A penny.
- Explanation: The two sides of a typical U.S. coin are called the “head” and “tail.” The head side features a portrait, while the tail side features a monument or other imagery. Pennies are brown because they’re made of copper, which oxidizes when exposed to air. [6] X Research source
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11Riddle: A cowboy rides into town on Friday. He stays for three days, then rides out of town on Friday. How is this possible?
- Answer: Friday is the name of his horse.
- Explanation: The riddle relies on the fact that you’ll probably assume Friday refers to the day he’s coming or leaving the town. This creates an impossible scenario. You have to consider the language carefully to realize the answer.
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12Riddle: Two fathers and two sons go to the mall. When they come home, only three people get out of the car. Everyone came home. How is this possible?
- Answer: The three people are a grandfather, his son, and his grandson.
- Explanation: Two fathers and two sons can apply to three people if they’re all related. The grandfather is a father. His son is also a father. His grandson is a son. In total, two are fathers and two are sons—the father being the one with overlap.
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13Riddle: A barrel of water weighs 60 pounds (27 kg). Someone puts something in the barrel. Now it weighs 40 pounds (18 kg). What did the person put?
- Answer: A hole.
- Explanation: While the barrel seemingly defies the laws of physics, it actually loses 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of water when someone puts a hole in the barrel. Most people assume it has to be an object that changes the barrel’s weight, making the riddle feel impossible.
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14Riddle: It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after. It ends life, kills laughter. What is it? [7] X Research source
- Answer: Darkness.
- Explanation:
Darkness is intangible, meaning it doesn’t have a physical presence. The sky and the inside of the earth are dark, as is the empty space in holes. Before and after life is darkness.
- Darkness kills laughter metaphorically, because “dark” or serious themes are nothing to laugh about.
- This riddle comes from The Hobbit . Gollum poses it to Bilbo during a high-stakes riddle game.
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15Riddle: A bus driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street. The police see him, but don’t stop him. Why not?
- Answer: He’s walking.
- Explanation: The wording of the riddle makes you assume the bus driver is driving the wrong way down the one-way street. Why don’t the cops pursue this obvious crime? Because it’s never specified that he’s in a bus. If he’s walking, there’s no crime.
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16Riddle: What tastes better than it smells?
- Answer: Your tongue.
- Explanation: This is another challenging wordplay riddle. You might assume the riddle is asking about something you can taste and smell, like a food. However, “tastes” and “smells” refer to actions done by the object.
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17Riddle: A hole measures 4 by 5 feet (120 by 150 cm). How much dirt is in the hole?
- Answer: None.
- Explanation: Holes are empty. The inclusion of the hole’s dimensions tricks you into thinking this riddle can be solved with math, but the answer relies on common sense.
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18Riddle: George, Helen, and Steve are drinking coffee. Bert, Karen, and Dave are drinking soda. Following the pattern, is Elizabeth drinking coffee or soda?
- Answer: She’s drinking coffee.
- Explanation: The pattern is that George, Helen, and Steve all have two E’s in their name and all drink coffee. Bert, Karen, and Dave only have one E in their name and all drink soda. Elizabeth has two E’s in her name, so she’s in the former group.
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19Riddle: A woman was born in 1975 and died in 1975. She was 22 years old when she died. How is this possible?
- Answer: 1975 is her hospital room number.
- Explanation: 1975 is a year, which makes the riddle seem impossible. However, it’s possible for the woman to be born and die in the same hospital room, 22 years apart.
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20Riddle: Three different doctors say Paul is their brother. Paul claims he has no brothers. How is this possible?
- Answer: The three doctors are Paul’s sisters.
- Explanation: This riddle may stump you if you assume that the “their brother” refers to men, but since the pronoun is ambiguous, it’s possible that the doctors are women. Paul has no brothers, but he is the three doctors’ brother.
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21Riddle: Turn me on my side, and I’m everything. Cut me in half, and I’m nothing. What am I?
- Answer: The number eight (8).
- Explanation: 8 on its side resembles the infinity symbol, which represents “everything.” 8 cut in half looks like a zero, which represents nothing.
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22Riddle: One of these words doesn’t belong in the list, because it doesn’t follow the same pattern as the other words. Here are the words: brawl, carrot, change, clover, proper, sacred, stone, seventy, swing, travel. Which word doesn’t belong?
- Answer: Carrot.
- Explanation: Imagine removing the first and last letters from each word in the list. Brawl becomes raw, change becomes hang, clover becomes love, and so on. The only word that doesn’t become another word is carrot—it becomes “arro,” which isn’t a word. [8] X Research source
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23Riddle: A man goes for a walk during a rainstorm with nothing to protect him. He has no hat, hood, or umbrella. At the end of the walk, there isn’t a wet hair on his head. Why doesn’t the man have wet hair?
- Answer: He’s bald.
- Explanation: The wording of the language is meant to trick you into assuming the man has hair. However, there isn’t a hair on his head—wet or otherwise.
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24Riddle: If an electric train is traveling north, which way is the smoke blowing?
- Answer: Nowhere. Electric trains don’t have smoke.
- Explanation: This riddle is a trick question. You have to remember that the train is electric, meaning it isn’t fueled by coal and consequently doesn’t produce smoke.
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25Riddle: What we caught, we threw away; what we didn’t catch, we kept. What did we keep? [9] X Research source
- Answer: Lice.
- Explanation: The fact that the ones posing the riddle are fishermen makes you think of catching fish. To solve the riddle, you have to assume what they were catching is something on them that they wanted to get rid of—like lice, the small bugs found in hair.
- Legend holds that the poet Homer encountered a riddle so challenging he died before he could solve it. This is that riddle, which fishermen supposedly posed to Homer after he asked about their day.
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26Riddle: What do the letter “t” and an island have in common? [10] X Research source
- Answer: They’re both in the middle of water.
- Explanation: The letter “t” is found in the middle of the word water. An island is a land mass floating in the ocean. Thus, both are in the middle of water.
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27Riddle: What fills a room, but takes up no space?
- Answer: Light.
- Explanation: Light is often said to “fill” a space by lighting up every corner, but it technically doesn’t take up any space. It’s immaterial. The wording of the riddle might trick you into thinking of other impossible answers.
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28Riddle: What is taken before you can get it?
- Answer: Your picture.
- Explanation: Having your picture taken is a common phrase, but out of context, the phrase taken seems to imply an object being stolen from you. You have to “take” a picture to get it, whether you’re using film or a digital camera.
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29Riddle: What do you buy to eat, but never eat?
- Answer: Cutlery.
- Explanation: This riddle sets you up to think of foods, since that’s what you buy for consumption. However, cutlery—forks, spoons, and knives—is used to eat. So, “to eat” means “to eat food,” while “eat” means “to eat as food.”
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References
- ↑ https://wbznewsradio.iheart.com/content/2025-01-17-this-riddle-stumps-98-of-harvard-students-but-most-kindergartners-solve-it/
- ↑ https://www.buzzfeed.com/carleysuthers/hard-riddles
- ↑ https://uen.pressbooks.pub/mythologyunbound/chapter/sphinx/
- ↑ https://bestlifeonline.com/hard-riddles/
- ↑ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/a41779999/riddles-for-adults/
- ↑ https://www.lewislatimerhouse.org/tinkerlab/shiningpennies
- ↑ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a26477/riddle-of-the-week-26/
- ↑ https://bestlifeonline.com/hard-riddles/
- ↑ https://spyscape.com/article/can-you-solve-11-of-historys-famous-riddles
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