25 Riddles That Sound Impossible Until You Hear the Answer

A good riddle is annoying in a very specific way. The answer is sitting in plain sight, you have everything you need to get there, and you still cannot see it — right up until somebody says it and the whole thing collapses into something obvious.

That is the entire appeal, and it is why riddles survive car journeys, waiting rooms and long dinners better than almost any other game. No equipment, no setup, no scoring unless you want it.

Here are twenty-five of them, grouped from gentle to genuinely irritating. All the answers are at the bottom, so you can read the questions out without spoiling yourself.

The warm-ups

Start here. These are the ones where the answer arrives about two seconds after you give up, which is exactly the feeling that makes people want another.

1. I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I?
2. What has keys but opens no locks?
3. What gets wetter the more it dries?
4. What has a head and a tail but no body?
5. What has hands but cannot clap?
6. I am tall when I am young and short when I am old. What am I?
7. What has many teeth but cannot bite?
8. What has a neck but no head?

Where it starts to get awkward

Somewhere in this round is the one your group will still be arguing about twenty minutes later.

1. The more of me you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?
2. I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, and water but no fish. What am I?
3. What can travel all the way around the world while staying in one corner?
4. What has one eye but cannot see?
5. What runs but never walks, and has a bed but never sleeps?
6. What can you catch but never throw?
7. What belongs to you, but other people use it far more than you do?
8. What is full of holes but still holds water?
9. What breaks the moment you say its name out loud?

The ones that cause arguments

Wordplay, mostly. If somebody in your group works out the trick early, they will be unbearable for the rest of the evening.

1. What goes up but never comes back down?
2. Drop me and I crack. Smile at me and I smile back. What am I?
3. What begins with T, ends with T, and has T inside it?
4. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
5. I am as light as a feather, but the strongest person alive cannot hold me for much more than a minute. What am I?
6. Forwards I am heavy. Backwards I am not. What word am I?
7. What has four wheels and flies?
8. What has an end but no beginning, a home but no family, and space without any room?

The answers

The warm-ups

1. An echo
2. A piano
3. A towel
4. A coin
5. A clock
6. A candle
7. A comb
8. A bottle

Where it starts to get awkward

1. Footsteps
2. A map
3. A stamp
4. A needle
5. A river
6. A cold
7. Your name
8. A sponge
9. Silence

The ones that cause arguments

1. Your age
2. A mirror
3. A teapot
4. The letter M
5. Your breath
6. Ton — which spelled backwards is “not”.
7. A bin lorry
8. A keyboard

How to use these without ruining them

• Read the riddle twice. Half the difficulty of a riddle is that people answer the version they think they heard.
• Give it a full minute of silence before anyone guesses. Riddles die when the first loud person in the room guesses immediately.
• Let people ask one yes-or-no question if they are stuck. It keeps the game moving without handing over the answer.
• Do not explain the answer after you say it. Either it lands or it does not, and explaining it never saves one.

If your group has the taste for wordplay now, Scrambled Letters is the same itch with a clock attached — all the right letters, all in the wrong order. And when nobody can agree on what to play next, pull the lever and let it decide for you.