135 Famous Riddles to Develop Your Mind with Fun
There are many famous riddles from Shakespeare’s time that never gets old, no matter how many times you solve them.
There are movies like Harry Potter, a blockbuster that everyone has in their hearts. We’re guessing you’ve heard at least three to five of our best-known riddles.
And if not, you will learn the famous riddles with answers that you can use for your next gathering or function so that you can enjoy or be the source of entertainment for others.
Try asking these riddles to your grandparents; we’re sure they know the answers to most of them.
After all, whether it’s famous riddles or puzzles, there should be something that makes us happy about being a part of this cruel world.
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Table of Contents
Most Famous Riddles
The most famous riddles are the basic ones, almost universally known. Walk on the living: they don’t even mumble is an example under the category of famous brain teasers. They mutter and grumble as they walk on the dead. Leaves.
1. There is a house. One enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?
Answer: A school.
2. As I walked along the path I saw something with four fingers and one thumb, but it was not flesh, fish, bone or fowl.
Answer: Glove.
3. Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet.
Answer: Bees making a honeycomb inside the carcass of a lion.
4. The sun bakes them, The hand breaks them, The foot treads on them, And the mouth tastes them. What are they?
Answer: Grapes.
5. What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?
Answer: A human.
6. A precious stone, as clear as diamond. Seek it out whilst the sun’s near the horizon. Though you can walk on water with its power, Try to keep it, and it’ll vanish within an hour.
Answer: Ice.
7. On the gold casket: “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.” On the silver casket: “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” On the lead casket: “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”
Answer: The lead casket contains Portia’s picture.
8. I soar without wings, I see without eyes. I’ve traveled the universe to and fro. I’ve conquered the world, yet I’ve never been anywhere but home. Who am I?
Answer: Imagination.
9. As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Each wife had seven sacks, Each sack had seven cats, Each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, How many were there going to St. Ives?
Answer: One.
10. I love to move around, But usually not on the ground. I’m quite strung out when way up high. I like to sail, but I need to stay dry. I need air, but not to breathe. A helpful hand is all I need. What am I?
Answer: Kite.
11. My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. Another view of man, my second brings, Behold him there, the monarch of the seas
Answer: Courtship.
12. Iron roof, glass walls Burns and burns And never falls.
Answer: Lantern.
13. My tines are long. My tines are short. My tines end ere. My first report. What am I?
Answer: Lightning.
14. Walk on the living, they don’t even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble.
Answer: Leafs.
15. The rich men want it, the wise men know it, the poor all need it, the kind men show it.
Answer: Love.
Short Famous Riddles
It is a myth that riddles must be described in great detail to be laughed at. A young woman fell from a 20-foot ladder. She was not injured. How? She slipped and fell off the bottom step. An example from the category of famous short riddles.
1. I look at you, you look at me I raise my right,you raise your left What is this object?
Answer: Mirror.
2. Look at me. I can bring a smile to your face, A tear to your eye, Or even a thought to your mind. But, I can’t be seen. What am I?
Answer: Memories.
3. I work when I play and play when I work.
Answer: Musician.
4. A prisoner is told: If you tell a lie we will hang you, if you tell the truth we will behead you. What can he say to save himself?
Answer: Nothing.
5. What is in seasons, seconds, centuries, and minutes, but not in decades, years, or days?
Answer: The letter N.
6. What is that which belongs to you but others use it more than you do?
Answer: Name.
7. What goes up the hill and down the hill, And spite of all, yet standeth still?
Answer: Road.
8. I have streets, but no pavement. I have cities, but no buildings. I have forests, yet no trees. I have rivers, yet no water.
Answer: Map.
9. The root tops the trunk on this backward thing, that grows in the winter and dies in the spring.
Answer: Icicle.
10. What can travel around the world while staying in a corner?
Answer: Stamp.
11. What is always coming but never arrives?
Answer: Tomorrow.
12. What is so delicate that saying its name breaks it?
Answer: Silence.
Famous Riddles with Answers
Famous riddles with answers make sense if you are asking questions to young kids of the modern generation. What, for example, has four wheels and flies? It’s a garbage truck.
1. What has to be broken before you use it?
Answer: Egg.
2. You can drop me from the tallest building and I’ll be fine, but if you drop me in water I die. What am I?
Answer: Paper.
3. What has many keys but can’t open a single lock?
Answer: Piano.
4. What has an eye but can not see?
Answer: Needle.
5. What has hands but can not clap?
Answer: Clock.
6. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?
Answer: Towel.
7. What has a bottom at the top?
Answer: Legs.
8. There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house. Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies. What is it?
Answer: Watermelon.
9. I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What number am I?
Answer: Seven.
10. What kind of room has no doors or windows?
Answer: Mushroom.
11. What goes through cities and fields, but never moves?
Answer: Road.
12. What kind of tree can you carry in your hand?
Answer: Palm.
13. I’m tall when I’m young and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?
Answer: Candle.
14. Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?
Answer: Man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then walks with a cane as an old man.
Tough Famous Riddles
Well-known jokes do not imply that they will always be simple. What English word, for example, has three consecutive double letters? Bookkeeper is an illustration under the heading tough famous riddles.
1. There is a certain crime, that if it is attempted, is punishable, but if it is committed, is not punishable. What is the crime?
Answer: Suicide.
2. What is the shortest complete sentence in the English language?
Answer: Go.
3. On my way to St. Ives I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kitten, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to St. Ives?
Answer: 1.
4. The man who invented it doesn’t want it. The man who bought it doesn’t need it. The man who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?
Answer: A Coffin.
5. World’s most debatable question. What came first, the egg or chicken?
Answer: Eggs. Dinosaurs laid eggs long before there were chickens
6. My wife shots me Then she holds me under water for approx. 10 minutes. Then she hangs me. After half an hour, me and my wife go for the movie “the shutter”. How can this be?
Answer: The wife is a photographer. She shot a picture of me, developed it, and hung it up to dry.
7. There are four days which start with the letter ‘T’. Two of them are “Tuesday, Thursday”. Can you name rest two?
Answer: Today & Tomorrow.
8. The wife is a photographer. She shot a picture of me, developed it, and hung it up to dry. A boy and his father are caught in a traffic accident, and the father dies. Immediately the boy is rushed to a hospital, suffering from injuries. But the attending surgeon at the hospital, upon seeing the boy, says ‘I cannot operate. This boy is my son.’ How is this situation explained?
Answer: The surgeon is the boy’s mother.
9. Why is 6 so much afraid of 7?
Answer: Because seven was hungry and ‘seven ate nine’ (7, 8, 9).
10. It’s a criminal offense for a man living in Chelsea to be buried in Manchester united. Why?
Answer: Because the man is still living.
11. What is the longest word in the dictionary?
Answer: Smiles (there is a mile between the two S’s).
12. What belongs to you but other people use it more than you.
Answer: Name of a Person.
13. Find the smallest sentence with all the English alphabets.
Answer: PACK MY BOX WITH FIVE DOZEN LIQUOR JUGS.
14. Yesterday I noticed that in my clock, there is a time when the hour needle and the minute needle are exactly between 1 and 2. Also, both the needles lie on top of each other. What time I and talking about?
Answer: 12:00. Both minute and hour clock lie exactly between the number one and two in the number.
Hard Famous Riddles
Even if you are a genius, hard famous riddles can leave you scratching your head. For example, how can the number four behalf of the number five? IV is the Roman numeral for four and “half” (two letters) of the word five.
1. Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?
Answer: Incorrectly.
2. What is full of holes but still holds water?
Answer: A sponge.
3. If you have me, you want to share me. If you share me, you haven’t got me.
What am I?
Answer: Secret.
4. What question can you never answer yes to?
Answer: Are you asleep yet?
5. What gets broken without being held?
Answer: Promise.
6. What is always in front of you but can’t be seen?
Answer: The future.
7. Feed me and I live, yet give me a drink and I die.
Answer: Fire.
8. There’s a one-story house in which everything is yellow. Yellow walls, yellow doors, yellow furniture. What color are the stairs?’
Answer: There aren’t any—it’s a one-story house.
9. Take off my skin – I won’t cry, but you will! What am I?
Answer: Onion.
10. What goes up but never comes down?
Answer: Your age.
11. Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out?
Answer: Stop imagining.
12. A man who was outside in the rain without an umbrella or hat didn’t get a single hair on his head wet. Why?
Answer: He was bald.
13. What invention lets you look right through a wall?
Answer: Window.
14. What can you keep after giving to someone?
Answer: Your word.
15. What month of the year has 28 days?
Answer: All of them.
Famous Riddles for Adults
We seem to progress our passion for famous riddles for adults, especially if there is an ideal elderly audience. What, for example, is cut on a table but never eaten? A deck of playing cards.
1. I shave every day, but my beard stays the same. What am I?
Answer: A barber.
2. I follow you all the time and copy your every move, but you can’t touch me or catch me. What am I?
Answer: Your shadow.
3. You see a boat filled with people, yet there isn’t a single person on board. How is that possible?
Answer: All the people on the boat are married.
4. What can you hold in your left hand but not in your right?
Answer: Your right elbow.
5. You walk into a room that contains a match, a kerosene lamp, a candle and a fireplace. What would you light first?
Answer: The match.
6. What is black when it’s clean and white when it’s dirty?
Answer: A chalkboard.
7. A man dies of old age on his 25 birthday. How is this possible?
Answer: He was born on February 29.
8. What gets bigger when more is taken away?
Answer: A hole.
9. I have branches, but no fruit, trunk or leaves. What am I?
Answer: A bank.
10. I’m light as a feather, yet the strongest person can’t hold me for five minutes. What am I?
Answer: Your breath.
11. What can’t talk but will reply when spoken to?
Answer: An echo.
12.: I’m found in socks, scarves and mittens; and often in the paws of playful kittens. What am I?
Answer: Yarn.
13. The more of this there is, the less you see. What is it?
Answer: Darkness.
14. Where does today come before yesterday?
Answer: The dictionary.
15. David’s parents have three sons: Snap, Crackle, and what’s the name of the third son?
Answer: David.
Famous Riddles for Kids
If you want to teach your children interestingly, you can use famous riddles for kids. For example, what is the capital of France? “F” is the letter. It is France’s only capital letter.
1. What can’t be put in a saucepan?
Answer: It’s lid.
2. What kind of band never plays music?
Answer: A rubber band.
3. What goes up and down but doesn’t move?
Answer: A staircase.
4. What has many teeth, but can’t bite?
Answer: A comb.
5. If you’re running in a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you in?
Answer: Second place.
6. What is cut on a table, but is never eaten?
Answer: A deck of cards.
7. What has lots of eyes, but can’t see?
Answer: A potato.
8. What has words, but never speaks?
Answer: A book.
9. What has many needles, but doesn’t sew?
Answer: A Christmas tree.
10. What runs all around a backyard, yet never moves?
Answer: A fence.
11. What has legs, but doesn’t walk?
Answer: A table.
12. What has a head and a tail but no body?
Answer: A coin.
13. What has one head, one foot and four legs?
Answer: A bed.
14. Where does one wall meet the other wall?
Answer: On the corner.
15. What can you catch, but not throw?
Answer: A cold.
Famous Riddles from Movies
We’ve all heard one or two famous riddles from movies starring our favorite actor or actress. What is heavier: all the trains that pass through Grand Central Station in a day our all the trees cut down in one year to print US currency? They both weigh the same amount (since they both weigh nothing).
1. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Answer: What do you mean? An African or European swallow? Like another riddle on this list, this one has no answer…we just like Monty Python.
2. Fear he who hides behind one.
Answer: Mask.
3. What weighs more: all the trains that pass through Grand Central Station in a day, or all the trees cut down in a year to print U.S. currency?
Answer: They both weigh the same (since they both weigh nothing).
4. I am first a fraud or a trick. Or perhaps a blend of the two. Thats up to your misinterpretation
Answer: Confusion.
5. Thirty white horses on a red hill: first they champ, then they stamp, then they stand still.
Answer: Teeth.
6. What was new, is new again. Rebirth. Restoration. Reformation.
Answer: Renewal.
7. Who’s would be the best director for volleyball movies?
Answer: Spike Lee.
8. You walk into a room and see a bed. On the bed there are 2 dogs, 4 cats, a giraffe, 5 cows and a duck. There are also 3 chickens flying above the bed. How many legs are on the floor?
Answer: Six legs are on the floor.
9. Where do mermaids see movies?
Answer: At the dive-in!
10. I’m n-not sure if you r-remember me, I t-taught here long ago, B-but I d-died one night, in a f-final fight When my m-master m-met his foe. Who am I?
Answer: Professor Quirrell.
11. Why couldn’t the twelve-year-old go to the pirate movie?
Answer: It was rated arrrgh.
12. Why do some people say that Captain Kirk has three ears?
Answer: He has a right ear, a left ear, and a final frontear.
13. What’s the very first thing that the Mad Hatter says to Alice when she arrives at the Mad Tea Party?
Answer: No room!
14. Where do they film movies about Christmas trees?
Answer: In Tinsel Town!
15. Who was at the Mad Hatter’s tea party?
Answer: Alice approaches a large table set under the tree outside the March Hare’s house and comes across the Mad Hatter and the March Hare taking tea. They rest their elbows on a sleeping Dormouse who sits between them. They tell Alice that there is no room for her at the table, but Alice sits anyway.
Popular Famous Riddles
Popular and classic riddles from your childhood should be passed down to your children in the same way that genes are passed down. For example, what has a lot of keys but can’t open a single door? It’s a piano.
1. This is a thing that is devoured by all things; flowers, trees, beasts, birds; bites steel, gnaws iron; grinds hard stone to meal; beats mountain down, ruins town and slays king. What is it?
Answer: Time.
2. What tastes better than it smells?
Answer: Your tongue.
3. I was a gift from the French, and stand tall on an island. I welcome visitors with a strong hand in the sky. I may be green, but I’m dressed in copper from head to toe. An iconic piece of New York history, with a famous face you definitely know. Who am I?
Answer: Statue of Liberty.
4. What kind of coat is best put on wet?
Answer: A coat of paint.
5. I’m in you, But not in him, I go up, But not down, I’m in the colosseum, But not a tower, I’m in a puzzle, But not a riddle. What am I?
Answer: The letter U.
6. If two’s company, and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
Answer: Nine.
7. A word I know, Six letters it contains, Subtract just one, And twelve is what remains.
Answer: Dozens.
8. What three numbers, none of which is zero, give the same result whether they’re added or multiplied?
Answer: One, two and three.
9. What walks on 4 legs when it is morning, on 2 legs at noon and on 3 legs in the evening?
Answer: A Human. As an infant, a man crawls on 4 legs; as an adult he walks on two legs and as an elderly citizen he walks with a cane hence the three legs.
10. Mary has four daughters, and each of her daughters has a brother. How many children does Mary have?
Answer: Five—each daughter has the same brother.
11. Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Answer: Because neither is ever approached without caws.
12. Which is heavier: a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?
Answer: Neither—they both weigh a ton.
13. What squeals louder than a caught rat?
Answer: Several caught rats.
14. Three doctors said that Bill was their brother. Bill says he has no brothers. How many brothers does Bill actually have?
Answer: None. He has three sisters.
15. What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes, And yet never grows?
Answer: One of Gollums riddles for Bilbo. The answer is mountain.
Final Thoughts on Famous Riddles
Famous riddles are similar to your country’s national anthem. In simple terms, just as everyone knows the national anthem, everyone knows famed brain teasers.
People in their mid-50s can relate more because the famous riddles are from their era. You must recall a childhood memory in which your grandmother or grandfather told you these famous riddles with answers: we innocent children assumed that our grandparents were geniuses.
The majority of the riddles are predicated on a well-known movie, play, or line of dialogue. It could also be about a famous person who did something that should be remembered until the end of time.
Riddles are among the oldest forms of entertainment; some have been around for thousands of years but are still complicate to tackle.
Hope you enjoy the famous riddles and answers and consider creating your own. Who knows, your riddle might become famous and someone using it to make the other person entertained.
