Riddle of the day
What has four letters, sometimes nine, but never five?
Need a hint?Hide hint
Try counting letters in the question itself.
Show the answerHide answer
Riddles with Answers for Every Age
A friendly place to find a riddle for the car, the classroom or the dinner table. Choose one below, read the question aloud, and open its page once everyone has had a guess.
20 riddles with answers
Popular riddles
Every riddle has a page of its own, with the answer shown right under the question.
- How many months have 28 days?
- Why is 6 afraid of 7?
- What goes up but never comes down?
- What gets wetter the more it dries?
- The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
- What do you call a bear with no teeth?
- What has a neck but no head?
- What has to be broken before you can use it?
- What gets bigger the more you take away?
- What can you catch but not throw?
- When is a door not a door?
- What is black and white and red all over?
- What has four wheels and flies?
- What word is spelled wrong in the dictionary?
- What has keys but can't open locks?
- I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. What am I?
- What has an eye but cannot see?
- How do you spell "cow" in thirteen letters?
- What comes down but never goes up?
- What has four letters, sometimes nine, but never five?
What makes a riddle work
A riddle describes an ordinary thing from an odd angle. A towel becomes something that gets wetter as it dries, and a piano becomes something with keys but no locks. The pleasure sits in the pause between the question and the answer, when the listener tries a guess, drops it and tries another.
That pause is worth protecting. Read the riddle slowly, give a minute of quiet, and open the page only when the room has run out of guesses. There the answer sits right under the question, followed by a short note on why the wording works.
Questions parents ask
What is a riddle?
A riddle is a short question that describes something indirectly, so the answer has to be worked out rather than recalled. Many depend on a word with two meanings, and the answer is often a plain, familiar thing.
Where do the riddles come from?
Some are taken from books printed before 1931, with the book and year shown under the answer. Others are traditional riddles that people have told for a long time.
Is the answer on the same page?
Yes. Each riddle has a page of its own, with the answer directly under the question and a short note on why it works. The home page and the lists of links show only the questions.
How do I find a riddle?
The All riddles page lists every riddle on the site, newest first, and the search box finds a riddle by a word from its question or its answer.
Are new riddles added?
Yes. New riddle pages are added regularly, and each one appears on the All riddles page as soon as it is published.