Funny Riddles With Answers: 60 for Teens and Adults
Here are 60 funny riddles with answers, each answer on its own line so you can cover it and guess first. They're grouped by the joke that makes them work: puns, double meanings, literal readings and trick questions, then sets for adults and teens and a few word-connection riddles at the end.
The grouping matters. Once you know which mechanism a riddle uses, you can solve new ones faster and even write your own. Each section opens with a line on how its joke works, and a few riddles carry a note on why they land.
Short Funny Riddles (Puns)
A pun riddle hides an ordinary phrase inside a new word, or a new meaning inside an ordinary phrase. The answer makes you groan because it was sitting in plain sight.
1. What do you call a fake noodle?
Answer: An impasta.
2. Why don't skeletons fight each other?
Answer: They don't have the guts.
3. What do you call a belt made of watches?
Answer: A waist of time.
Why it's funny: "Waste of time" is a phrase you say every week. The belt turns it into a picture.
4. Why did the scarecrow win an award?
Answer: He was outstanding in his field.
5. What do you call a pig that knows karate?
Answer: A pork chop.
6. Why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants?
Answer: In case he got a hole in one.
7. What do you call a dog that does magic tricks?
Answer: A labracadabrador.
8. What did the grape say when it got stepped on?
Answer: Nothing. It just let out a little wine.
Why it's funny: "Whine" and "wine" sound the same, and squashed grapes really do become wine.
9. Why couldn't the leopard play hide and seek?
Answer: Because he was always spotted.
10. What do you call a factory that makes products that are just okay?
Answer: A satisfactory.
11. Why did the coffee file a police report?
Answer: It got mugged.
12. What do you call an elephant that doesn't matter?
Answer: An irrelephant.
Funny Riddles With Answers: Double Meanings
These are "what am I" riddles where one word in the question has two meanings. Your brain grabs the common meaning first, and the answer uses the other one.
13. What can you serve but never eat?
Answer: A tennis ball.
14. What has a ring but no finger?
Answer: A telephone.
15. What kind of band never plays music?
Answer: A rubber band.
16. What goes up and down but never moves?
Answer: A staircase.
Why it's funny: You picture something bouncing. The stairs "go up" only in the sense that they lead upward.
17. What has a head, can't think, and spends its life getting hit?
Answer: A nail.
18. What kind of nut has no shell?
Answer: A doughnut.
19. What has four wheels and flies?
Answer: A garbage truck.
Why it's funny: "Flies" reads as a verb until you remember the bugs.
20. What's black and white and read all over?
Answer: A newspaper.
Why it's funny: Said aloud, "read" sounds like "red," so you hunt for a black, white and red object.
21. Why is the letter A like a flower?
Answer: A bee (B) comes after it.
22. How do you make the number one disappear?
Answer: Add a G, and it's gone.
Funny Trick Questions
Trick questions are funny because the answer is completely literal. The question sets up a hard problem, and the answer points out that there was never a problem at all.
23. How many apples grow on a tree?
Answer: All of them.
24. What's the best way to keep milk from going sour?
Answer: Leave it in the cow.
25. What can you put in a bucket to make it lighter?
Answer: A hole.
Why it's funny: You think of things to add. The answer adds an absence.
26. Where do you find a cow with no legs?
Answer: Right where you left it.
27. Why did the man put his money in the freezer?
Answer: He wanted cold, hard cash.
28. What can you hold without ever touching it?
Answer: A conversation.
29. If you're in a room with no windows, no doors and only a mirror, how do you get out?
Answer: Look in the mirror, see what you saw, take the saw and cut your way out.
Why it's funny: It's a chain of puns (saw the past tense, saw the tool) pretending to be an escape plan. Groaning is the correct response.
30. Can you name three days in a row without saying Monday, Wednesday or Friday?
Answer: Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
31. How many months have a second?
Answer: All of them. Every month has seconds in it.
32. What do you call a man with no body and just a nose?
Answer: Nobody knows.
Funny Riddles for Adults
Clean enough for an office icebreaker, but they lean on grammar, money, work and the small indignities of adult life.
33. What's the difference between a cat and a comma?
Answer: A cat has claws at the end of its paws. A comma is a pause at the end of a clause.
Why it's funny: The rhyme does the work. Both halves sound almost the same and mean nothing alike.
34. Why don't scientists trust atoms?
Answer: Because they make up everything.
35. What's the best thing about Switzerland?
Answer: I don't know, but the flag is a big plus.
36. What did the janitor say when he jumped out of the closet?
Answer: "Supplies!"
37. What do lawyers wear to court?
Answer: Lawsuits.
38. What's an astronaut's favorite key on the keyboard?
Answer: The space bar.
39. What did the left eye say to the right eye?
Answer: "Between you and me, something smells."
Why it's funny: It's anatomically accurate, which is the joke.
40. Why do bees have sticky hair?
Answer: Because they use honeycombs.
41. I'm sold by the yard but worn by the foot. What am I?
Answer: A carpet.
42. Why did the tomato turn red?
Answer: It saw the salad dressing.
43. What do you call a pile of cats?
Answer: A meowntain.
44. Why did the bank teller quit?
Answer: She lost interest.
Funny Riddles for Teens
School, phones and numbers: easy enough to answer in a minute, silly enough to make a class groan.
45. Why was six afraid of seven?
Answer: Because seven eight nine.
Why it's funny: "Ate" and "eight" sound identical, so a counting sequence becomes a crime story.
46. What did the zero say to the eight?
Answer: "Nice belt."
47. Why did the student eat his homework?
Answer: The teacher told him it was a piece of cake.
48. What's a computer's favorite snack?
Answer: Microchips.
49. Why did the phone wear glasses?
Answer: It lost its contacts.
50. How do you make a tissue dance?
Answer: Put a little boogie in it.
51. What did the stamp say to the envelope?
Answer: "Stick with me and we'll go places."
52. Why did the student bring a ladder to school?
Answer: Because she was going to high school.
53. Why did the music teacher need a ladder?
Answer: To reach the high notes.
54. Why did the teacher wear sunglasses to class?
Answer: Because her students were so bright.
Funny Word Connection Riddles
Each set has three words. Find the one word that goes with all three to make a phrase or compound word. They're all about jokes, so the theme is a hint.
55. practical, inside, running
Answer: Joke (practical joke, inside joke, running joke).
56. punch, bottom, finish
Answer: Line (punchline, bottom line, finish line).
57. stock, gas, matter
Answer: Laughing (laughing stock, laughing gas, laughing matter).
58. funny, back, wish
Answer: Bone (funny bone, backbone, wishbone).
59. stand-up, sketch, romantic
Answer: Comedy (stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, romantic comedy).
60. class, rodeo, sad
Answer: Clown (class clown, rodeo clown, sad clown).
Why Funny Riddles Work
Almost every riddle on this page runs on the same move. The question pushes you toward one reading of a word or situation, and the answer flips to a second reading that was available all along. "Read all over" means "covered in red" until it means "read by everyone." "Spotted" means "covered in spots" until it means "seen."
The laugh comes at the flip. That's why a riddle stops being funny once you know it: the second meaning is no longer a surprise. It's also why the word-connection set at the end belongs here. To find "bone" for funny, back and wish, you have to drop the first meaning of each cue and look for one that fits all three, which is the same flip, done on purpose.
There's some research behind pairing humor with this kind of problem. In a 1987 paper, Isen, Daubman and Nowicki reported that putting people in a good mood, by showing them a few minutes of a comedy film or giving them a small bag of candy, improved their performance on two creative tasks: Duncker's candle problem and the Remote Associates Test. Conditions that induced a negative mood, or that had people do physical exercise, didn't produce comparable improvements. Our post on humor and creativity covers that connection in more detail.
How to Use These Funny Riddles
A few ways to get more out of the list than one read-through:
- Run a 10-minute riddle round. Read one riddle aloud, give everyone 30 seconds to write a guess, then reveal. Score a point for the right answer and a bonus point for the funniest wrong one.
- Guess the mechanism first. Before you answer, say whether you think it's a pun, a double meaning or a trick question. Naming the mechanism points you at the right word to reread.
- Use them as icebreakers. Riddles 33 to 44 work at the start of a meeting or workshop. Two or three is plenty; the goal is a laugh, not a quiz.
- Write your own in 5 minutes. Pick a word with two meanings (bark, bat, ring, train, press). Write a question that points at the meaning people don't expect, and test it on someone.
- Swap in harder ones when these get easy. Our hard riddles collection has 50 riddles sorted by the trap they set, and the word brain teasers post has hidden words, word ladders and anagrams.
For younger kids, the riddles for kids collection has 60 easier riddles grouped by age and type.
Train the Same Skill With a Timed Drill
A riddle is used up once you know the answer. A word-connection task keeps working because the problems change every time.
Our Speed Connections drill is built on the Remote Associates Test, the same task used in the 1987 study above. You see three cue words and find the one word that links all three, like riddles 55 to 60. You get up to three guesses per triad, a correct answer moves you to the next one, and the session ends when the timer runs out. If you want to understand the format first, read our guide to the Remote Associates Test.
If you like the scenario style of riddle 29, the lateral thinking puzzles collection has longer puzzles, each with the assumption it exploits.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some funny riddles with answers? Good starters are "What do you call a fake noodle?" (an impasta), "What has four wheels and flies?" (a garbage truck) and "Why was six afraid of seven?" (because seven eight nine). All 60 riddles above have the answer on its own line.
What are good funny riddles for adults? Riddles 33 to 44 are written for adults and stay clean enough for work. The cat-and-comma riddle and "Why did the bank teller quit?" (she lost interest) go over well with groups.
What makes a riddle funny? A funny riddle sets up one reading of a word or situation, then the answer switches to a second reading that was there all along. The laugh comes from the switch, which is why the same riddle is rarely funny twice.
What are some funny riddles for teens? Riddles 45 to 54 suit teens: they use school, phones and numbers, and each can be answered in under a minute. Try "What did the zero say to the eight?" (nice belt).
What is the difference between a riddle and a joke? A joke tells you the punchline. A riddle asks you to find it first. Many funny riddles are jokes in question form, which is why they work as a game: people get a few seconds to guess before the reveal.
How do you make up your own funny riddle? Start with the answer. Pick a word or phrase with two meanings, such as "spotted" or "outstanding in his field," then write a question that points to the less obvious meaning. Test it on someone; if they groan, it works.
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