Tricky Riddles for Adults With Answers
Updated · Best Riddles With Answers editorial team
Quick answer: These 42 tricky riddles for adults look simple at first and then trip you up. They include trap questions, word tricks, probability puzzles and number problems, and each answer comes with the reasoning so you can see where the catch was. Try them with friends, but have a pen and paper ready for the later sets.
Easy Tricky Riddles For Adults
A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four in another. If he combines them all in the middle of a third field, how many haystacks does he have?
One, because they all become a single large haystack.
How many eggs can you eat on an empty stomach?
One. After the first egg, your stomach is no longer empty.
You are driving a bus. At the first stop 6 people get on. At the second stop 3 get off and 4 get on. At the third stop 2 get off. What is the name of the bus driver?
Your own name, because you are the driver.
What happens when you throw a red hat into the Black Sea?
It gets wet.
Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain on Earth?
Mount Everest. It simply had not been found yet.
How can you give five apples to five children so that each child gets one apple, but one apple stays in the basket?
Give the last child the basket with the last apple still in it.
A sign in a shop says: 1 costs 25p, 12 costs 50p and 100 costs 75p. What is the shop selling?
Digits for house numbers, at 25p per digit.
A girl falls off a 20 foot ladder, but she is not hurt at all. How?
She fell off the bottom rung.
Two men play five games of chess. Each man wins the same number of games, and there are no draws. How?
They are not playing each other. Each is playing someone else.
A beggar's brother died, but the man who died had no brother. Who was the beggar?
His sister.
How can you lift an elephant with one hand?
You will never find an elephant with only one hand.
How many seconds are there in a year?
Twelve: the 2nd of January, the 2nd of February, and so on.
Trickier Tricky Riddles For Adults
You have a 7 minute hourglass and a 4 minute hourglass. How can you time exactly 9 minutes?
Start both. At 4 flip the small one. At 7 flip the large one. At 8 the small one empties and the large one has 1 minute run, so flip it. It empties at 9.
What is the length of the diagonal of a rectangular room that is 3 metres by 4 metres?
5 metres, because 3 squared plus 4 squared is 25, and the square root of 25 is 5.
A car drives from A to B at 30 miles an hour and returns at 60 miles an hour. What is its average speed for the round trip?
40 miles an hour. For a distance of 60 miles, the trips take 2 hours and 1 hour, so 120 miles in 3 hours is 40.
I am a word of letters three. Add two, and fewer there will be. What word am I?
Few. Add 'er' and you get 'fewer'.
What English word begins and ends with 'und'?
Underground.
Rearrange the letters of 'new door' to make one word.
'One word'.
What common verb turns into its own past tense when you rearrange its letters?
Eat becomes ate.
What nine-letter word has only one vowel?
Strengths.
What is the fewest number of straight cuts needed to cut a 3 by 3 by 3 block into 27 small cubes, if you may rearrange pieces between cuts?
6. Each of the three directions needs 2 cuts, and rearranging the pieces does not reduce that.
How many different arrangements can you make using all the letters of the word MOM?
3: MOM, MMO and OMM.
If you list the numbers from one to ten in alphabetical order, which one comes first?
Eight.
Hard Tricky Riddles For Adults
100 children stand in a circle numbered 1 to 100. Starting with child 1 staying, every second child sits down, going round and round. Who is the last child standing?
Child 73. For 100 = 64 + 36, the survivor is 2 x 36 + 1 = 73.
Behind one of three doors is a car, and behind the others are goats. You pick door 1. The host, who knows where the car is, opens door 3 to show a goat and offers you a switch. What is your chance of winning if you switch?
2/3. Your first pick has a 1/3 chance, so the other unopened door has the remaining 2/3.
In a 100 metre race, Ann beats Ben by 10 metres, and Ben beats Cal by 10 metres in the same distance. By how much does Ann beat Cal?
19 metres. When Ann finishes, Ben is at 90, and Cal is at 90 x 0.9 = 81 metres.
What six-digit number gives the same digits in a different order when multiplied by 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6?
142857. For example 142857 x 6 = 857142.
Which is bigger: 2 to the power of 100, or 10 to the power of 30?
2 to the power of 100. Since 2 to the power of 10 is 1024, which is more than 1000, 2 to the 100 is more than 10 to the 30.
You can climb a staircase of 10 steps by taking either 1 or 2 steps at a time. In how many different ways can you reach the top?
89. The counts follow 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, adding the previous two each time.
What is the smallest positive number that leaves a remainder of 1 when divided by 2, a remainder of 2 when divided by 3, 3 when divided by 4, 4 when divided by 5 and 5 when divided by 6?
59, which is one less than 60, the smallest number divisible by all of 2 to 6.
How many rectangles of every size are on a standard 8 by 8 chessboard?
1296. Choose 2 of 9 vertical lines and 2 of 9 horizontal lines: 36 x 36 = 1296.
Chicken nuggets are sold in boxes of 6, 9 and 20. What is the largest number of nuggets you cannot buy exactly?
43. Every number above 43 can be made from 6, 9 and 20.
A drawer has 10 black socks and 10 white socks. How many must you take out in the dark to be certain of a matching pair?
3. With 3 socks, at least two must be the same colour.
Quick-Fire Tricky Riddles For Adults
What letter comes next? M, T, W, T, F, S, ...
S, for Sunday.
How many months of the year have at least 30 days?
Eleven. Only February has fewer than 30 days.
How many is half a dozen dozen?
72, because 6 x 12 = 72.
How many birthdays does the average person have?
One. The others are anniversaries of it.
If you cut a stick in half, how many ends do you have?
Four. Each piece has two.
What letter comes next? A, E, F, H, I, K, L, M, ...
N. These capitals are all drawn with straight lines only.
What do you get if you divide 100 by one half?
200.
What number comes next? 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, ...
21. The gaps grow by one each time: 2, 3, 4, 5, then 6.
How to Use These Riddles
Tricky riddles reward careful reading. Many of them are fair puzzles with a trap built into the wording, so slow down, read each sentence again and ask what the question really says. After a wrong answer, look for the word that misled you.
The later sets include maths, so give people paper. Ask them to show their reasoning, then compare. It is common for two people to reach different answers and for the discussion to be more entertaining than the solution.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a riddle tricky?
A tricky riddle hides its answer behind an assumption, a double meaning or a misleading detail. The solution is always fair, but you must question the obvious reading to find it.
How do I get better at tricky riddles?
Read slowly, restate the problem in your own words, and question each assumption. Practise with different types, such as word tricks, logic and maths, because each rewards a different habit.
Why does the Monty Hall answer feel wrong?
Most people assume the two closed doors are equally likely, but the host's knowledge changes the odds. Your first pick stays at one third, so switching wins two thirds of the time.
Are tricky riddles good for groups?
Yes. They spark debate, and people enjoy defending different answers. Give each person a minute to think alone, then let the group argue before you reveal the solution.
