Hard riddles with answers

A hard riddle should be solvable in hindsight. If the answer makes people groan rather than argue, it is a good one.

Forty below, from wordplay to lateral thinking, each with the answer. Save the last set for a quiz night tiebreak.

Wordplay riddles

• What word contains all 26 letters? - Alphabet.
• What begins with T, ends with T and has T in it? - A teapot.
• What word becomes its own opposite when you add a letter? - Nowhere becomes now here.
• I am a word of letters three; add two and fewer there will be. What am I? - Few.
• What English word has three consecutive double letters? - Bookkeeper.
• Which word in the dictionary is always spelled incorrectly? - Incorrectly.
• What seven letter word contains hundreds of letters? - Mailbox.
• Remove my first letter and I still sound the same; remove my last and the same again; remove my middle and I am still me. What am I? - The word empty.
• What is the longest word with no repeated letters you can build from the alphabet in order? - Almost, which runs A L M O S T alphabetically.
• What starts with an E, ends with an E and usually holds one letter? - An envelope.

Logic riddles

• Three switches downstairs, one bulb upstairs. One trip up. Which switch? - Turn on switch one for ten minutes, off, turn on switch two, go up. Lit is two, warm is one, cold is three.
• You have two ropes that each burn for one hour but not evenly. Measure 45 minutes. - Light rope one at both ends and rope two at one end. When rope one dies, 30 minutes have gone; light rope two's other end for 15 more.
• A man pushes his car to a hotel and loses his fortune. Why? - He is playing Monopoly.
• You are in a race and overtake second place. What position are you in? - Second.
• There are three boxes, all labelled wrongly. One pick from one box tells you all three. Which? - The mixed box, because its label is wrong so it holds only one fruit type.
• Two coins add up to 30p and one of them is not a 20p. What are they? - A 20p and a 10p; the other one is the 20p.
• A doctor gives you three pills, one every half hour. How long until they are gone? - One hour.
• A farmer has 17 sheep and all but nine run away. How many left? - Nine.
• How many months have 28 days? - All twelve.
• Divide 30 by half and add ten. What is the answer? - Seventy.

Lateral thinking puzzles

• A man lies dead in a field with an unopened package beside him. What happened? - His parachute failed.
• A woman buys a new pair of shoes and dies at work that evening. Why? - She is a magician's assistant and the new heels changed her height.
• A man lives on the tenth floor but only takes the lift to the seventh unless it is raining. Why? - He is short and can only reach the seventh button; with an umbrella he can reach the tenth.
• Romeo and Juliet lie dead on the floor beside water and broken glass. What happened? - They are goldfish.
• A man walks into a bar and asks for water. The barman points a gun at him. He says thank you and leaves. Why? - He had hiccups.
• A hotel guest is found dead after a phone call from reception with nothing said. Why did he die? - He realised he was not alone in the room.
• Two men enter a restaurant and order albatross soup. One tastes it and dies. Why? - He had eaten albatross before under a false name at sea and realised the truth.
• A woman pushes her car past a hotel and pays rent. Why? - Monopoly again, and yes, people fall for it twice.

Riddles for a quiz tiebreak

• What can be cracked, made, told and played? - A joke.
• What is bought by the yard and worn by the foot? - Carpet.
• The more you have of it, the less you see. What is it? - Fog.
• What is always in front of you but cannot be photographed? - The future.
• What has a head and a tail but no legs? - A snake, or a coin, and both answers should count.
• What can be swallowed but can also swallow you? - Pride.
• What is broken every time it is spoken? - Silence.
• What has 88 keys but cannot open a door? - A piano.
• What goes all around a field but never moves? - A hedge.
• What has a heart that does not beat? - An artichoke.
• What has one head, one foot and four legs? - A bed.
• What can you serve but never eat? - A tennis ball.

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How to write it so it lands

• Lateral thinking puzzles work best when the group can ask yes or no questions - allow ten before the reveal.
• Never explain a riddle mid-round. Take the answers, reveal at the end, keep the pace up.

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Frequently asked questions

How do I run a riddle round at a quiz?

Ten riddles, read twice, thirty seconds each, one point per correct answer and a bonus point for the group that gets the lateral thinking one without hints.

What makes a riddle hard rather than unfair?

A fair hard riddle has all the information in the wording. If solving it needs a fact nobody has, it is trivia, not a riddle.