brain teasers and riddles
Brain Teasers and Riddles
They make you think, they make you laugh, they make you wonder, and they make you ponder. Yes, they are the puzzling riddles! Here are a few that will tease you, tickle you and make you think real hard for some of the simplest of answers!
Calculators and computers discourage our ability to think, leading the brain to sit idle and be the infamous devil's workshop. Forget your boredom, and put your mind to a constructive use to solve some of these brain teasers which are loads of fun, once you get down to solving them. Those long drives with friends that get boring will definitely take an interesting turn with the funniest answers that these riddles would make them think of. From general knowledge questions for adults to riddles for kids, you would have enough brain work to do. Let's see the toughest questions that have the simplest answers.
Best Riddles and Brain Teasers
Q1. What are two things you cannot have for breakfast?
Lunch and dinner! One can only eat breakfast as an early morning meal; the rest would be called lunch and dinner. So, technically, one cannot have lunch or dinner for breakfast.
Q2. What is broken every time it's spoken?
Silence. We often use the phrase 'to break a silence' when me mean there is noise or sound. Thus, every time someone speaks, we figuratively break the silence.
Q3. What English word retains the same pronunciation, even after you take away four of its five letters?
Queue. When we remove 'ueue' from the word 'Queue', it still retains the sound of the letter 'Q', which is same as the word 'Queue'.
Q4. If there are three cups of sugar and you take one away, how many do you have?
One, as that is the only one you took away and that is all that you have. The rest still remain where there were.
Q5. How many letters are in the alphabet?
8. We meant the word 'alphabet' and not the series of alphabets. So, the right answer is 8.
Q6. Take away the whole and some still remains. What is it?
The word 'wholesome.' If you remove the 'whole' or the first part of the word, 'some' will still remain as an independent word.
Q7. What English word has three consecutive double letters?
Bookkeeper. The letters 'oo', 'kk', and 'ee' appear consecutively and doubly in the word 'bookkeeper'.
Q8. If I give you a group of three, one who is sitting down and will never get up. The second, who eats as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry. The third, who goes away and never returns. What are we?
Stove, fire, smoke. Here 'stove' represents the one who is always sitting, 'fire' which eats or consumes everything and is yet hungry for more, and finally 'smoke' which gets flown away with air, only never to return.
Q9. If you break me
I do not stop working,
If you touch me
I may be snared,
If you lose me
Nothing will matter. Who am I?
Your heart, because you can be heartbroken, but still have a heart. If someone's good deed touches your heart, you get entrapped with the feeling, and the day you lose your heart, you cease to exist, which precisely means nothing matters.
Q10. What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?
The letter M. The riddle questions the number of times the letter 'm' appears in the words, 'minute', 'moment', and 'years'.
Q11. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The egg, since dinosaurs laid eggs long before there were chickens.
Q12. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain on Earth?
Mount Everest, of course! Irrespective of the discovery, Mount Everest remains the highest peak in the world.
Q13. While some months have just 30 days, others have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?
Every month has 28 days.
Q14. What has a mouth but can't chew?
River. It has a mouth, but it definitely cannot chew anything!
Q15. How could a cowboy ride into town on Friday, stay two days, and ride out on Friday?
His horse is named Friday!
Q16. When can you add two to eleven and get one as the correct answer?
When you add two hours to eleven you get one, because we say it is 1 'o' clock and not 13 'o' clock.
Q17. The more you take, the more you leave behind.
Footsteps. The more you walk, the more traces you leave behind.
Q18. What did the fish say when he ran into a concrete wall?
Damn! The poor fish banged into the wall.
Q19. What starts with a T, ends with a T, and has T in it?
Teapot.
Q20. You saw me where I never was and where I could not be. And yet within that very place, my face you often see. What am I?
A reflection. You saw yourself in a mirror, where you could never be.
Q21. Forward I'm heavy, but backwards I'm not. What am I?
Ton. If you spell 'ton' backwards, it would spell 'not'.
Q22. What question can you never honestly answer yes to?
'Are you asleep?' How can you answer this with yes or with honesty, if you are actually asleep?
Q23. Feed me and I live, give me drink and I die. What am I?
Fire. If you keep adding fuel (feeding it) to the fire, it will keep burning. However, a little water will extinguish or kill it.
Q24. What are the next two letters in this series? J F M A M J J A S O
N and D. These are initials of the months in a year.
Q25. A man is born in 1946 and dies in 1947, yet he was 86 years old. How is that possible?
He was born in room no.1946 and died in room no.1947, 86 years later.
Q26. What is as big as an elephant but weighs nothing at all?
An elephant's shadow!
Q27. I go through towns and hills but I never move. Who am I?
Road. A road goes through most of the places, but never itself moves.
Q28. How do you double your money in the easiest and fastest way?
Place it in front of the mirror! The reflection will make it look like there is twice as much as actual money.
Q29. Who has four eyes but can never see?
Mississippi. It has four 'I's in its spelling, but still it cannot see as it does not have an eye. This riddle is more about the homophones I and eye.
Q30. Who has hands but cannot clap?
Clock!
What seemed like easy questions to answer, made you think the most. These brain-racking riddles add fun to social gatherings and friendly meetings. Riddles keep you engaged for hours and make you think of permutations and combinations of possible answers. Solving riddles, puzzles, and brain teasers accelerate your thinking ability and boost your memory and reasoning skills. The cumulative effect of this is seen through a sharp intellect and great logical reasoning. Just as your body requires exercise and a healthy diet for building strength and vitality, the gray cells too need some charging from time to time.