Here are the best brain teasers and riddles for teens 14+ to solve. Riddles are a great mental challenge for people of all ages and a bell ringer for the developing young mind of a teenager. In some cases, riddles can be considered as a joke or an entertaining mind puzzle, while in most cases, riddles are enigmas.
If you’re a teacher, put a fun riddle or two at the end of a vocabulary or math quiz and offer extra credit to every student who gets the right answer. Need gripping ways to settle your students at the beginning of the lesson or keep their minds going even after a long day? Incorporate a riddle game every once in a while to strengthen their minds. A good ol’ math riddle or vocabulary brain teaser is a fun way to challenge their lateral thinking in an untraditional way and elevate critical thinking skills.
Fun and Tricky Riddles for Teens
What English word does the following: the first two letters signify a male, the first three letters signify a female, the first four letters signify a great person, while the entire word signifies a great woman. What is the word?
“Heroine.”
All 5 sisters are busy. Ann is reading a book, Rose is cooking, Katy is playing chess, and Mary is doing the laundry. What is the 5th sister doing?
She’s playing chess, of course!
A boy and an engineer were fishing. The boy is the son of the engineer but the engineer is the father of the boy. Then who is the engineer?
The engineer is the boy’s mother.
A plane crashed between the border of Canada and America. Where do you bury the survivors?
They are survivors, you don’t bury them.
When you look for something, why is it always in the last place you look?
Because when you find it, you stop looking!
Lives in winter, dies in summer, and grows with its roots upward. What is it?
An icicle.
There are 5 houses. A blue house, a pink house, a yellow house, a red house, and a green house. The blue is made out of blue bricks. The pink is made out of pink bricks. The yellow is made out of yellow bricks. The red is made out of red bricks. What is the green made out of?
Glass. It’s a green house.
Which English word is the odd one out – Stun, Ton, Evil, Letter, Mood, Bad, Snap, Straw?
Letter.
If you are running in a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you in?
Second place.
What English word has three consecutive double letters?
Bookkeeper.
Three doctors said that Robert is their brother. Robert says he has no brothers. Who’s lying?
No one is lying – Robert has 3 sisters who all happen to be doctors.
If you multiply me by any other number, the answer will always remain the same. What number am I?
0
My first is in chocolate but not in ham, my second’s in cake and also in jam, my third at tea-time is easily found, my whole is a friend who’s often around. What am I?
A cat.
A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms: the first is full of raging fires; the second, assassins with loaded guns, and the third, with lions who haven’t eaten in years. Which room is the safest?
The room with the lions because the lions are already dead.
How many letters are in the alphabet?
There are 11 letters in “the alphabet”.
A woman is sitting in her hotel room when there is a knock at the door. She opened the door to see a man whom she had never seen before. He said, “Oh I’m sorry. I have made a mistake. I thought this was my room.” He then went down the corridor and in the elevator. The woman went back into her room and phoned security. What made the woman so suspicious of this man?
You don’t knock on your own hotel room door!
Which will burn longer: the candles on the birthday cake of a boy or the candles on the birthday cake of a girl?
No candles burn longer–they all burn shorter.
Two in a corner, 1 in a room, 0 in a house, but 1 in a shelter. What am I?
The letter “R”
Two fathers and two sons are in a car, yet there are only three people in the car. How?
They are a grandfather, father, and son.
The person who makes it has no need of it; the person who buys it has no use for it. The person who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?
A coffin.
You walk into a room that contains a match, a kerosene lamp, a candle, and a fireplace. What would you light first?
The match.
What has no beginning, end, or middle?
A doughnut.
A man is trapped in a room. The room has only two possible exits: two doors. Through the first door, there is a room constructed from magnifying glasses. The blazing hot sun instantly fries anything or anyone that enters. Through the second door, there is a fire-breathing dragon. How does the man escape?
He waits until night time and then goes through the first door.
When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving?
In the dictionary.
My buddies and I were inseparable mates
Til one by one were we split
My teacher, she gave me a smack on the pate
And off in the corner I sit.
Admittedly still I’m not hitting the books
Though now I’m hugging a tree
I guess in the end it’s not bad as it looks
I went from a C to a B…
A staple.
The combined age of a father and son is 66 years. The age of the father is the age of the son, but with the digits reversed. How old are they?
51 and 15 or 42 and 24 or 60 and 6.
There are four brothers in this world that were all born together. The first runs and never wearies. The second eats and is never full. The third drinks and is always thirsty. The fourth sings a song that is never good. What are the four brothers?
Water, Fire, Earth, and Wind.
There were the following people at a family gathering: one grandfather, one grandmother, two fathers, two mothers, four children, three grandchildren, one brother, two sisters, two sons, two daughters, one father-in-law, one mother-in-law, and one daughter-in-law. But not as many people attended as it sounds. How many were there, and who were they?
7 people: two little girls and a boy, their parents, and their father’s parents, totaling seven people.
Divide 110 into two parts so that one will be 150 percent of the other. What are the 2 numbers?
44 and 66.
A man was outside taking a walk when it started to rain. The man didn’t have an umbrella and he wasn’t wearing a hat. His clothes got soaked, yet not a single hair on his head got wet. How could this happen?
The man was bald.
If an electric train is traveling south, which way is the smoke going?
There is no smoke – it’s an electric train.
If there are 3 apples and you take away 2, how many do you have?
2.
What 3 positive numbers give the same result when multiplied and added together?
The numbers are 1, 2, and 3.
Anna drank two-thirds cup of wine, and Charlotte drank a fourth cup of wine. Who drank the most?
Charlotte as she drank four cups of wine.
A man is found murdered in his office. The suspects are Peter, Julie, Jason, Molly, and Brian. In the office is a calendar with the numbers 6,4,9,10,11 written in blood. Who is the killer?
Jason is the killer. The numbers indicate months and the first letter of each month spells the name of the murderer, e.g. the 6th month is June and the first letter of June is J, the 4th month is April and the first letter of April is a, and so on.
A man started to town with a fox, a goose, and a sack of corn. He came to a stream which he had to cross in a tiny boat. He could only take one across at a time. He could not leave the fox alone with the goose or the goose alone with the corn. How did he get them all safely over the stream?
He took the goose over first and came back. Then, he took the fox across and brought the goose back. Next, he took the corn over. He came back alone and took the goose.
In a bus, there is a 26-year-old pregnant lady, a 30-year-old policeman, a 52-year-old random woman, and the driver who is 65 years old. Who is the youngest?
The baby of the pregnant lady.
David’s father has three sons: Snap, Crackle and…?
David.
What has thirteen hearts but no other organs?
A deck of cards.
I have two coins equaling fifteen cents. One of them is not a nickel. What are the two coins?
A dime and a nickel. One of the coins is not a nickel, but the other one is.
What is it that you cannot hold even ten minutes, even though it is lighter than a feather?
Your breath.
A girl is sitting in a house at night that has no lights on at all. There is no lamp, no candle, nothing. Yet she is reading. How?
The woman is blind and is reading braille
I am a term used to confirm. But take away my front, my face, I become known as human avarice.
Agreed
What is next in this sequence? JFMAMJJASON . . .
The letter “D.” The sequence contains the first letter of each month.
Alcohol makes me thrive and multiply, yet water will kill me. What am I?
Fire
Paul’s height is six feet, he’s an assistant at a butcher’s shop, and wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?
Meat
A cowboy rode into town on Friday. He stayed in town for three days and rode out on Friday. How was that possible?
Friday was the name of his horse.
How can a man go 8 days without sleep?
He only sleeps at night.
What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in one thousand years?
The letter M.
While a cat was outside, it started to downpour. The cat couldn’t find any shelter and got completely soaked by the rain, yet not a single hair was wet. How could this be?
It was a hairless cat
Lateral Thinking Word Riddles
Lateral thinking puzzles are a set of circumstances where you have to try and figure out what happened or what’s going on. In other words, it’s the kind of puzzle that allows you to become a detective and come up with more than one possible answer. These mind-blowing riddles will really force any teen to stop and think when coming up with an answer.
Here are some classic lateral thinking word riddles:
A man was found murdered on Sunday morning. His wife immediately called the police. The police went to the crime scene and question the wife and staff and got these alibis: The wife said she was sleeping, the cook was eating breakfast, the gardener was picking vegetables, the maid was getting the mail, the butler was cleaning the closet. The police instantly arrested the murderer. Who did it and how did they know?
It was the Maid. She said she was getting the mail but there’s no mail on Sundays!
Five pieces of coal, a carrot, and a scarf are lying on the lawn. Nobody put them on the lawn but there is a perfectly logical reason why they should be there. What is it?
They were used by children who made a snowman. The snow has now melted.
Two girls were born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same month and year, and yet they’re not twins. How can this be?
The two babies are two of a set of triplets.
A woman shoots her husband, then holds him underwater for five minutes. Next, she hangs him. Right after, they enjoy a lovely dinner. Explain.
She took a picture of him and developed it in her darkroom.
A man lives on the 11th floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator all the way down to the bottom and goes to work. In the evening, when he comes back from work, he gets into the elevator, and if there is someone else in it, he goes back to the 11th floor. On rainy days he also goes directly to his floor. On all other days, he goes to the 8th floor and walks up 3 flights of stairs to his apartment. Why?
He is a small person. He can’t reach the upper elevator buttons, but he can ask people to push them for him. He uses his umbrella to push the buttons on days when it rains.
A woman enters a large metal tube and is overcome with fear. She clenches her husband’s hand tightly and is visibly shaken. Her husband gently rubs her shoulders but is otherwise unaffected. Within hours the woman’s husband tells her that it’s time to go and the torment ends. What happened to this woman?
The woman has an incredible, debilitating fear of flying. She must travel to see a dying relative which adds to her emotional disposition. Upon entering the plane she is overcome with fear and her husband consoles her. The flight takes a few hours and upon arrival they are allowed to leave the plan.
A man is found hanging dead from the ceiling of a room. The room’s dimensions are 15 x 15 x 15. The man is only 6ft tall and the rope was only 2ft long. There are no windows and only one door into the room. The door is bolted shut from the inside and there is a puddle of water under the man. How did he kill himself?
The man stood on a block of ice.
A family has a chicken coop containing one dozen egg producing hens. One night, a terrible storm came and killed all but eight chickens. How many chickens did the family have in the morning?
The family still had 12 chickens: 4 dead ones and 8 alive!
A man walks into a bar and asks the barman for a glass of water. The barman pulls out a gun and points it at the man. The man says ‘Thank you’ and walks out. Why did he do that? What happened?
The man had hiccups. The barman recognized this from his speech and drew the gun in order to give him a shock. It worked and cured the hiccups – so the man no longer needed the water.
A woman residing in a fifty-story building decides to jump out the window. She survives the fall with no injuries. How did she do this?
The woman jumped out of the first-floor window, which was only three feet off the ground.
A man is lying dead in a field. Next to him, there is an unopened package. There is no other creature in the field. How did he die?
The man had jumped from a plane but his parachute had failed to open. It is the unopened package.
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Here is a famously hard riddle written up by Albert Einstein when he was young. This is the kind of riddle that will need to be written out or even drawn, in order to find the answer. This isn’t a good riddle for a kid to try and solve (unless they have a high IQ and are up for a challenge) but rather, an adult who knows how to use logic and deductive reasoning.
Five houses painted five different colors stand in a row. One person of a different nationality lives in each house. The five homeowners all drink some type of beverage, smoke a certain cigar brand, and have a certain kind of pet. But none of the owners drink the same beverage, smoke the same type of cigar, or have the same pet.
Clues:
- The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.
5. The green house’s owner drinks coffee.
6. The owner who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The owner living in the center house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The owner who keeps the horse lives next to the one who smokes Dunhill.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The owner who smokes Blends lives next to the one who drinks water.
Now, the question is…Who owns the fish?
The German in house #4 owns the fish.
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Hope you enjoyed these riddles!
