Classic Riddles

Classic riddles are enigmas, whether short or long, that stood the test of time to become staples in funny interactions between different generations. These are likely familiar to many grandparents and parents, but it’s time to pass them on to the younger generations and there is nothing wrong with reviving one’s memory or to ensure that the legacy goes on. Do you still remember the answer to all of them?

33 Classic Riddles With Answers

It walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening. What is it?

Answer: Man. He crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as a man and uses two legs and a cane when he's old.

What can you catch but not throw?

Answer: Cold

A dad and son are in a car accident. The dad dies instantly and the son gets sent to hospital. The doctors have to operate on him, but one of the doctors turns around and says, “I can't operate on him... he's my son.” Who is the doctor?

Answer: His mother.

I am two words with thousands of letters in me. What am I?

Answer: I am a " post office " because thousands of letters are found in the post office.

Walk on the living, they don't even mumble. Walk on the dead, they mutter and grumble. What are they?

Answer: Fallen leaves

What can be broken but is never held?

Answer: A promise

In marble walls as white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk, within a fountain crystal clear, a golden apple does appear. No doors are there to this stronghold -- Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.

Answer: An egg

I am always hard when dry but smooth and soft when wet. What am I?

Answer: Sponge.

What gets bigger the more you take away?

Answer: A hole.

How many months have 28 days?

Answer: All 12 of them.

You live in a one-story house made “entirely of redwood“. What color would the stairs be?

Answer: What stairs? You live in a one-story house.

A grandfather, a father, and a son go fishing. Each gets one fish but there is only one fish how is this?

Answer: It is only one person. He is a son of his father, he is a father to his son and he is a grandfather to his grandchild.

While on my way to St. Ives, I saw a man with 7 wives. Each wife had 7 sacks. Each sack had 7 cats. Each cat had 7 kittens. Kitten, cats, sacks, wives, How many were going to St. Ives?

Answer: Just one, me.

By Moon or by Sun, I shall be found. Yet I am undone, if there's no light around.

Answer: Shadow

The moon is my father. The sea is my mother. I have a million brothers. I die when I reach land.

Answer: Wave

What gets wetter the more it dries?

Answer: A towel.

What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?

Answer: A river.

I'm tall when I'm young and short when I'm old. What am I?

Answer: A candle.

You are trapped in a dimly lit dungeon deep below the city of Berlin. There are two doors in the dungeon. You know that one door leads to freedom, and a holiday in the Canary Islands, while the other leads to death. There are two armed giants, each guarding one of the doors. You know that the giants' names are Ivan and Mike. You do not know which is which. You also know that one of them always tells the truth, while the other always tells lies. Yet again, you do not know which is which. You are allowed to ask one of the giants one question. What question should you ask?

Answer: You should ask one guard which door would the other guard pick as safe and choose the opposite door. The truthful guard will tell you that the other (the liar) will pick door X (wrong one). The liar will lie and tell you that the truthful guard would pick door X (wrong one).

What goes up but never comes down?

Answer: Age.

What has a face and two hands but no arms or legs?

Answer: A clock.

Two mothers and two daughters went fishing one day. They were there there the whole day and only caught 3 fish. One mother said: "That is enough for all of us, we will have one each." How can this be possible?

Answer: There was the mother, her daughter, and her daughter's daughter. This equals 2 mothers and 2 daughters.

My second is performed by my first, and it is thought a thief by the marks of my whole might be caught.

Answer: Footstep

A blue house is made of blue bricks. A yellow house is made of yellow bricks. A red house is made of red bricks. An orange house is made of orange bricks. What would a green house be made of?

Answer: Glass

In idioms, I’m known to cross the road. What’s my motive, can you decode?

Answer: Chicken

If an electric train is going south, what direction is the smoke going?

Answer: There is no smoke – it’s an electric train.

A beggar's brother died, but the man who died had no brother. How could this be?

Answer: The beggar was a woman

I have no mouth to speak and no ears to hear. I have no body but I live with the wind. What am I?

Answer: Echo

There are two bodies on the floor. They are surrounded by water and broken glass. How did they die?

Answer: The water came from a fish bowl that got knocked over. The bodies were goldfish.

A silent witness to life’s ebb and flow, I’m the divider of worlds, high and low. What am I?

Answer: Door

There is a house. Once enters it blind and comes out seeing. What is it?

Answer: A school.

A leathery snake, with a stinging bite. I'll stay coiled up, unless I must fight.

Answer: Whip

You get many of me, but never enough. After the last one, your life soon will snuff. You may have one of me but one day a year. When the last one is gone, your life disappears. What am I?

Answer: Your birthday

Riddles are word games as old as language itself and some have entered the collective imagination of people from all over the world to the point they become classics. Every culture has a myth or a story that involves a magical being protecting a passage and willing to step aside only for those who solve en enigma, for example. And who hasn’t heard about old-school riddles like the Sphynx’s riddle (“It walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening. What is it?”). Brush up on your knowledge of these classic riddles with answers or discover new ones to add to your repertoire to add timeless sense to it.

Last Updated: Thursday, January 23, 2025