Riddles can either be a great way to kill some time or a frustratingly painful and endless wracking of your brain.
Although they can be tough, riddles are extremely satisfying to figure out and can leave you feeling like the smartest person in the room.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to outsmart some of the toughest riddles out there, then check out this list of 14 riddles almost no one can solve.
1. Riddle:How do you fit 10 horses into nine stalls?
Answer: To figure out a riddle, you have to think creatively.
For this one, putting pen to paper or keys to a keyboard will reveal the answer to you: [T][E][N][H][O][R][S][E][S].
3. Riddle:If you eat me, my sender will eat you. What am I?
Answer: When solving riddles, it’s important to consider all of the ways that a word can be used. In this case, the word “sender” is what you want to focus on. The picture may help out a bit as well.
4. Riddle:What can go up a chimney down but can’t go down a chimney up?
Answer: The thing about riddles is that they are usually culturally or geographically relevant. If you live in a cold, rainy place, the answer to this one may come easier for you.
6. Riddle: This four-letter word is always done tomorrow. We’re out of tea, the ultimate sorrow! Without the eye, you owe me some money. No sugar, no nectar, no sweetness, no honey. Four-letter word, if by chance you choose, you can never win, you can only lose! What is the four-letter word?
Answer: Here’s a breakdown of some of the clues: it is always done tomorrow because as a cliche, people always say they’re going to start dieting but never actually do. Without a “t,” “diet” turns to “die,” which is the ultimate sorrow. If you remove the “i,” “diet” becomes “det,” which sounds like “debt,” the owing of money. You can never win because on a diet you lose weight.
7. Riddle: After dying, you enter a room with two doors, one leads to heaven, the other to hell. Next to each door is a bird. One bird always tells the truth, the other always lies. What can you ask the birds to find out which door leads to heaven?
Answer: The goal here is to be clever with your questions. You’re essentially trying to ask the truth-telling bird what the lying bird’s answer would be to a question so that you can get a legit answer.
For example: “What would the other bird say if I asked them which door leads to heaven?”
8. Riddle: You are inside a square, glass room with all south-facing walls. You see a bear outside. What color is the bear?
Answer: Location, location, location. Where would you be if every direction was south? The north pole. And what kind of bear lives that far north? A polar bear.
9. Riddle: Jeff went skydiving near his house in Portland, OR. As a result, he saved his brother Stewart’s life. Oddly, Stewart lived in Charlotte, NC, and hadn’t spoken to his brother Jeff in 10 years. How did this unlikely miracle take place?
Answer: This is why we should all be organ donors after we die.
Jeff didn’t make it, but his brother Stweart needed a kidney and he got it.
11. Riddle: A man is taking a trip and he’s starting in Charleston then going to Houston. He will stay one night then head to Richmond and after that, he’ll go to Georgetown. He’ll stay two nights then go to Raleigh and lastly travel to Sacramento. Where is he now?
Answer: Don’t be fooled by all the locations and the days spent there. The riddle is written using future tense which means he hasn’t actually left yet.
12. Riddle: I rest below the star above you and I, a few stories below me is an empty space. What am I?
Answer: You’ll need a keyboard to answer this one. Find the “U” and the “I” key and then the asterisks or “star” above them. What’s in between all of these?
13. Riddle: There are five houses that are each a different color. There is a person of a different nationality in each house. The five owners drink a certain drink. They each smoke a certain brand of cigarettes and also have a certain pet. No owner has the same pet, smokes the same brand of cigarettes, or drinks the same drink. The question is, “Who has the fish?”
Answer: The answer to this riddle requires you to work it out using a grid. I won’t do it here but you can click this link to see how it’s done.
14. Riddle: A woman’s mother dies, and at the funeral, she meets a man with who she falls madly in love. She has never met this man or heard of him. That night she kills her sister. Why?
Answer: Instead of just asking for his number, this woman kills her sister just so she can see him again.
