Short easy riddles
Mississippi has four S’s and four I’s. Can you spell that without using S or I?
T-H-A-T!
You can hold me in your left hand but not your right. What am I?
Your right elbow (or right hand)!
Bella is outside a shop. She can’t read the signs, but she knows she needs to go in to make a purchase. What store is she at?
An eyeglass store.
What has a bottom at the top?
Your legs.
Using only addition, add eight 8s to get the number 1,000.
888 + 88 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 1,000. This is the kind of math riddle you can work out with times tables, or by simple logic. First, get as close to 1,000 as you can (888). From there, it’s easy to figure out the rest.
There’s a one-story house where everything is yellow. The walls are yellow. The doors are yellow. All the furniture is yellow. The house has yellow beds and yellow couches. What color are the stairs?
There are no stairs—it’s a one-story house!
I go around all the places, cities, towns and villages, but never come inside. What am I?
A street.
Wednesday, Bill and Jim went to a restaurant. They ordered and ate their food. Then they paid the bill, but neither Bill nor Jim paid. Who did?
Wednesday did!
If you drop a yellow hat in the Red Sea, what does it become?
Wet.
In reply to an inquiry about the animals on his farm, the farmer says: “I only ever keep sheep, goats and horses. In fact, at the moment they are all sheep bar three, all goats bar four and all horses bar five.” How many does he have of each animal?
The farmer has three sheep, two goats and one horse. You can solve this animal riddle with a quick hypothetical. Take sheep: We know there are three animals that are goats and horses, so we suppose there are two goats and one horse. Checking this hypothesis gives us three sheep, which works out because there are four non-goats: three sheep, and one horse!
A girl fell off a 20-foot ladder. She wasn’t hurt. How?
She fell off the bottom step.
You go at red and stop at green. What am I?
A watermelon.
What are the next three letters in this sequence: O, T, T, F, F, S, S—what comes next?
E, N, T. The letters are the first letters of the written numbers: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. “Eight, nine, ten” are next.
What color is the wind?
Blew.
One brother says of his younger brother: “Two years ago, I was three times as old as my brother was. In three years time, I will be twice as old as my brother.” How old are they each now?
One way to solve this math riddle is to use even numbers: The older brother will be twice as old as his younger brother in three years’ time. This immediately rules out the older brother currently being 8, 11 and 14, so he must be 17, and the younger brother 7. Two years ago, they were 15 and 5 respectively, and in three years, they will be 20 and 10.
Grandpa went out for a walk, and it started to rain. He didn’t bring an umbrella or a hat. His clothes got soaked, but not a hair on his head was wet. How is this possible?
Grandpa’s bald!
I have married many times but have always been single. Who am I?
A priest.
How can you physically stand behind your father while he is standing behind you?
You and your father are standing back-to-back.
What tastes better than it smells?
Your tongue.
I add six to eleven, and get five. Why is this correct?
Tricksy, tricksy! You have to think more broadly. Here’s a hint: Think about the numbers on a clock. When it is 11 a.m., adding six hours makes it 5 p.m.
You’re in a race and you pass the person in second place. What place are you in now?
Second place.
I am higher without a head. What am I?
A pillow.
What type of cheese is made backward?
Edam.
What can jump higher than a building?
Anything that can jump—buildings can’t jump!
Old Granny Adams left half her money to her granddaughter and half that amount to her grandson. She left a sixth to her brother, and the remainder, $1,000, to the dogs’ home. How much did she leave altogether?
This math riddle might have tripped you up! But the trick is not to focus on the hypothetical amounts, but on the fractions: Adding one half, one quarter and one-sixth tells us that the total is a fraction of twelfths (2 + 4 + 6 = 12). You can also think about it as 6/12, 3/12, 2/12, which equals 11/12. If the remainder is $1,000, that must be one-twelfth, so the total is $12,000.