Thirty riddles that work just as well for adults as for children from nine: logic riddles with a twist, classics like the riddle of the Sphinx and a few that get the whole table arguing for ten minutes. Tap to reveal the answers. Anyone who solves the bat and the ball at the first attempt is a rare bird.
The best riddles are the ones adults get wrong. Children have an advantage: they have not yet learned the assumptions people usually make. Here are thirty riddles for the dinner table, the car and the family get-together, chosen so that no age has the upper hand.
Sunday at five o'clock in a terraced house in Vällingby. A nine-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, two parents and a grandfather around the table, the food is finished and nobody has got up yet. This is the moment riddles are made for: when everyone is still sitting there and someone says "I've got another one". The thirteen-year-old wants to prove she is smarter than Grandpa, and the nine-year-old solves the surgeon before anyone else has finished thinking.
Thirty riddles
- I am not alive but I grow. I have no lungs but I need air. I have no mouth but water kills me. What am I?
Show the answer
Fire.
- The more of me there is, the less you see. What am I?
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Darkness.
- What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the daytime and three in the evening?
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A human. Crawls as a baby, walks as an adult, walks with a stick in old age. The riddle of the Sphinx.
- What can you never eat for breakfast?
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Lunch and dinner.
- A woman shoots her husband, holds him under water for five minutes and then hangs him up. An hour later they have dinner together. How?
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She took his photo, developed the picture and hung it up.
- How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?
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None. It was Noah.
- If five machines make five things in five minutes, how long does it take a hundred machines to make a hundred things?
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Five minutes.
- A bat and a ball cost 110 kronor together. The bat costs 100 kronor more than the ball. How much is the ball?
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Five kronor. Not ten.
- A doctor gives you three tablets and says: take one every half hour. How long do they last?
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One hour. The first now, the second after half an hour, the third after an hour.
- What can pass through glass without breaking it?
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Light.
- Which room has no corners?
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An igloo.
- What does everyone buy for eating, but nobody eats?
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Plates. Or cutlery.
- What is easy to lift but hard to throw far?
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A feather.
- What is at the end of the rainbow?
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The letter w.
- A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies, the son is taken to hospital. The surgeon says: I cannot operate on him, he is my son. How does that work?
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The surgeon is his mother.
- There are ten apples in a bowl. You take three. How many do you have?
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Three.
- In which month do people sleep the least?
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February. It has the fewest nights.
- What can you lose without it ever falling?
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Your temper. Or your train of thought.
- What weighs nothing but can sink a ship?
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A hole.
- What does everything end with?
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The letter g.
- What stands right between heaven and earth?
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The word and.
- What has teeth but never eats?
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A zip. Or a saw.
- What is tall when it is young and short when it is old?
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A candle.
- Which word has five a's but only eleven letters?
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Abracadabra.
- What is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it you die?
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Nothing.
- What is black when you buy it, red when you use it and grey when you throw it away?
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Coal.
- How many birthdays does the average person have?
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One. The rest are birthday celebrations.
- A man goes out in pouring rain with no umbrella and no hat. Not a single hair gets wet. How?
Show the answer
He is bald.
- Which weighs more: a litre of water or a litre of ice?
Show the answer
The water. Ice takes up more space, so a litre of ice weighs less.
- I have cities but no houses, mountains but no trees, water but no fish. What am I?
Show the answer
A map.
Why adults get it wrong more often than children
The bat and the ball is the most studied riddle in the list. Most adults answer ten kronor, instantly and with confidence, and it is wrong. The brain takes the route that feels right and skips the checking. Children who still count on their fingers are slower, and that is exactly why they get it right more often. The same goes for the surgeon: an adult who grew up with the image of a male surgeon gets stuck, a ten-year-old asks why that would be a problem.
That is what makes these riddles fair. Nobody can swot up on them, and the person who knows the most has no head start. An adult who is used to being right gets to sit quietly for two minutes while a child explains. That is good for everyone involved.
How to get the most out of them
- One at a time, and wait. A minute of silence is a good thing. That is when they are thinking.
- Let the children give the adults clues. That is the best twist of all.
- Keep a note of which ones you have done. Otherwise the tablets come back every weekend.
- Explain why. After the answer: which assumption was it that fooled us? That is what makes the children better at the next one.
- Read the riddle twice. Whoever hears it once guesses, whoever hears it twice thinks. Don't stress any particular word, it gives the game away.
Which riddle for which age?
All thirty can be put to the whole table, but they have different ways in. This is roughly how it tends to play out in the families we work with:
| Age | What works | Examples from the list |
|---|---|---|
| 7 to 8 years | Word riddles where the answer is hidden in the question itself, if someone reads slowly | The rainbow, the plates, the feather, the igloo |
| 9 to 11 years | Logic riddles with a hidden assumption, they often solve them before the adults | The surgeon, the apples, Moses' ark, the tablets |
| 12 and up | Number riddles and those that require holding several conditions in your head | The bat and the ball, the machines, the litre of ice, February |
| Adults | The classics that require knowing something, and the trick riddles | The Sphinx, coal, nothing, the map |
Three kinds of riddle, and how to crack them
Word riddles are about the language itself. What is at the end of the rainbow? The letter w. What does everything end with? The letter g. The trick is to stop thinking about the thing and start thinking about the word. Children who have just learned to read are often best at them, because letters are still something they see.
Logic riddles rest on an assumption that is not in the text. The surgeon is not a man. Moses had no ark. You have three apples, not seven. The trick is to ask yourself what you took for granted. Say it out loud at the table after the answer; that is the habit that makes the children better every time.
Number riddles are the ones that fool adults most, because they look like simple maths. Five machines in five minutes, three tablets every half hour, 110 kronor for a bat and a ball. The trick is pen and paper. Whoever draws the tablets on a timeline sees the answer straight away; whoever does it in their head says an hour and a half.
Riddles as a game: the car, the party and the quiz walk
In the car, riddles work best when nobody has their phone out. One riddle every ten kilometres, and whoever solves it picks the next. At a party for ten- to twelve-year-olds you can pin up ten of them as a Tipspromenad for kids with three answer options; the teams go round the flat or the stairwell and argue at every sheet. At the family dinner they are the rescue when conversation runs dry: put the surgeon to the whole table and see who answers first. It is rarely the person you expect.
If you want more, there are 100 riddles for kids with answers, sorted by age for younger siblings, and Brain teasers for children for anyone who would rather count than play with words.
How we do it with our families
Nike picks up a ten-year-old from fritids (after-school care) in Sundbyberg every Tuesday at four, and the walk home takes twelve minutes. That is riddle time. She takes one a week from this list, no more, and she never gives the answer on the way home. The ten-year-old gets to carry it in his head until dinner, where his parents get to hear it. The surgeon he solved on the steps before they had even got through the front door, and he talked about it for a week. The next Tuesday it was him who had a riddle for Nike, one he had made up himself, and it wasn't bad.
Would you like a nanny who comes on the same days every week and whom your children know? Book a free first meeting with the nanny in your home, and we will put together a quote for your hours.
Read more: 100 riddles for kids with answers, sorted by age · Family quiz · Funny jokes for kids · FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Which riddles suit both children and adults?
Logic riddles with a twist: the father and the surgeon, the bat and the ball, the tablets. Children from nine solve them as often as adults, and often faster, because they don't get stuck in habitual thinking. Pure puns and riddles that require knowing something, like the riddle of the Sphinx, are more fun when someone at the table already knows them and can give clues.
How do you give clues without giving it away?
Ask a question back: what did you just assume? Almost every tricky riddle rests on an assumption that is not in the riddle, that the surgeon is a man or that the bat costs a hundred. Whoever finds the assumption finds the answer. If that doesn't work, read the riddle once more, slowly, and stress the word that is the key.
Where does the riddle of the Sphinx come from?
From the Greek myth of Oedipus. The Sphinx sat outside Thebes, put the riddle to everyone who wanted to enter the city and devoured those who answered wrongly. Oedipus answered: a human, who crawls on four legs as a baby, walks on two as an adult and leans on a stick in old age. The Sphinx then threw herself to her death.
From what age do these riddles work?
From about nine for most children, when they can hold several conditions in their head at once and enjoy being fooled. A seven-year-old can manage the easier ones, like the rainbow and the plates, if someone reads slowly. If you want riddles for younger children, our collection of a hundred riddles starts at age three.
How many riddles are right for one dinner?
Three to five. One riddle that gets the table arguing for ten minutes is worth more than ten that everyone solves in a second. Save the rest for next Sunday, and keep a note of which ones you have done. Whoever answers correctly gets to ask the next riddle; that is the rule that keeps the children wanting more.