2,066 Medium Riddles With Answers - page 10 of 21
What has green hair, a round red head and a long thin white beard?
A radish has leafy green tops, a round red bulb, and thin white roots, resembling hair, a head, and a beard.
It is basically a cake made of cow.
Meatloaf is ground beef ('cow') shaped and baked in a loaf pan, resembling a savory 'cake.'
This baked dish consists of an open-topped pastry case with a savory or sweet filling.
The clue clearly describes an open-topped pastry (properly called a "tart"), but the source's own answer key lists "fan" for this entry — likely a misaligned or erroneous line in the original worksheet. We keep the source's stated answer as instructed, though "tart" is the far better fit for the wording.
What is eaten by man, served among many, grown by many, and white as snow?
Rice is a staple food eaten worldwide, served at countless meals, cultivated by farmers everywhere, and its grains are white.
You'll see savory dishes in Hong Kong sizzling in these.
The wok is the traditional round-bottomed pan used throughout Chinese and Hong Kong cooking for stir-frying sizzling dishes.
This small, rolled tortilla usually has meat or cheese filling, and was originally invented in Mexico.
Taquitos are small rolled and fried tortillas filled with meat or cheese, a dish that originated in Mexico.
What is an astronaut's favorite snack?
It's a pun on 'spaceships' -- an astronaut's favorite snack is playfully called 'space chips.'
What can provide food before it is alive, while it is alive and after it's dead?
As an egg it feeds you before it's born, as a hen it lays more eggs while alive, and as meat it feeds you after being slaughtered.
I am the type of room you can not enter or leave. Raise from the ground below. I could be poisonous or a delicious treat. What am I?
A mushroom hides the word 'room' inside its name, rises up from the ground overnight, and depending on the species can be either a deadly poison or a delicious treat.
I am a nut with a hole. What am I?
This is a playful pun -- a donut is a ring-shaped sweet treat with a hole in the middle, jokingly called a 'nut.'
High fat reward for making it through another solar cycle.
This is a roundabout way of describing birthday cake, the treat you get for completing another year, or solar cycle, of life.
Squeeze it and it cries tears. As red as its flesh, but its heart is made of stone.
A cherry is red inside and out, releases juice ('tears') when squeezed, and has a hard pit ('heart of stone').
A container holding water but not a cup. If you want to find me, look up. What am I?
A coconut holds coconut water inside and grows high up in palm trees, so you must look up to find one.
This Cajun dish of rice with shrimp, chicken, and vegetables, is often enjoyed with cornbread.
Jambalaya is a classic Louisiana Cajun rice dish typically made with meat, seafood, and vegetables.
You throw away my outside, you cook my inside. Then you eat my outside and you throw away my inside. What am I?
Corn on the cob has an outer husk you discard, and after cooking, you eat the kernels off the cob before tossing the cob itself.
What do you get when you cross a chicken and a pig?
This joke plays on the idea that crossing a chicken (which gives eggs) with a pig (which gives bacon) gives you a full breakfast: eggs and bacon.
What traps a star in its belly but can be held in your hand?
Slicing an apple crosswise reveals a star-shaped pattern formed by its seeds, hidden inside a fruit small enough to hold.
If you're on a diet, smelling a fresh pan of brownies could be described as this.
For someone trying to avoid sweets, the smell of fresh brownies they can't eat feels like pure torture.
I have a head but no body, a heart but no blood. Just leaves and no branches, I grow without wood. What am I?
A head of lettuce has a dense 'heart' at its center and leafy layers, but no woody stem or blood like an animal.
This type of tempting cuisine is independent of utensils and usually tastes better than it sounds.
Finger food is eaten by hand without any utensils, and dishes with unassuming names (like "pigs in a blanket") often taste better than their description suggests.
A standard dimension for sandwiches and rulers.
'Footlong' describes both a foot-long sandwich, like a hot dog, and the 12-inch length marked on a ruler.
Santa shakes his belly like me. What am I?
The classic description of Santa's belly — 'like a bowl full of jelly' — comes straight from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.'
I'm very tempting, so it's said, I have a shiny coat of red, and my flesh is white beneath. I smell so sweet, taste good to eat, and help to guard your teeth.
A shiny red apple, white-fleshed and sweet-smelling beneath its skin, is famously said to help keep the dentist away and protect your teeth.
Come November 1st, many of these will be found smashed on sidewalks.
After Halloween on October 31st, carved jack-o'-lantern pumpkins are commonly found smashed on sidewalks the next morning.
This is a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce.
Despite the name "baked beans," the dish is typically simmered or stewed on a stovetop rather than actually baked.
I wear a green jacket on the outside, white jacket as a second layer, and a red jacket inside. I am pregnant with a lot of babies. What am I?
A watermelon's green rind, white inner layer, and red flesh studded with seeds ('babies') match this riddle's colorful, layered description perfectly.
A colorful cuisine without flesh.
Vegetarian cooking is built around colorful vegetables, fruits, and grains, deliberately excluding any meat ("flesh").
Despite having long teeth, every bit of food it grabs gets taken from it.
A fork has long "teeth" (tines) that spear food, but the food is always lifted away to the mouth, never kept by the fork itself.
I come out of the earth, I am sold in the market. He who buys me cuts my tail, takes off my suit of silk, and weeps beside me when I am dead.
An onion is dug from the earth and sold at market; preparing it means trimming its root 'tail,' peeling off its papery 'silk' skin, and shedding tears while cutting it.
Men seize it from its home, tear apart its flesh, drink the sweet blood, then cast its skin aside.
An orange is picked from the tree, peeled apart, its juicy 'flesh' eaten and sweet juice ('blood') drunk, and its peel ('skin') thrown away.
It's the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh.
Lettuce wilts quickly and is really only sold and eaten fresh, unlike most produce that can be frozen or canned.
What is common to eat before it's born and after it's dead?
You can eat a chicken egg before the chick is born, and you eat chicken meat only after the bird has died.
Delicious but said to be a lie.
This plays on the video game Portal's famous line "the cake is a lie" -- cake is delicious, yet notoriously said not to be real in that context.
My flavors ranges from strawberry to toe. What am I?
Fruit jam comes in flavors like strawberry, and 'toe jam' is slang for the grime that collects between toes -- a gross pun on the word 'jam.'
Where do cows go to dance?
This is a pun on 'the meat ball' sounding like a fancy dance ('the ball'), tied to cows being a source of meat.
There was a little heart inside a little white house, which was inside a little yellow house, which was inside a little brown house, which was inside a little green house.
A walnut grows wrapped in a green husk, inside a hard brown shell, under a thin papery skin, around a heart-shaped kernel at its center - nested 'houses' within houses.
A house with two occupants, sometimes one, rarely three. Break the walls, eat the borders, then throw away me. What am I?
A peanut shell usually contains two peanuts, sometimes one, and occasionally three; you crack the shell, eat the nuts inside, and discard the shell.
A fruit on a tree. A tree on a fruit.
This is wordplay: "pine" is a type of tree and "apple" is a type of fruit -- together they form "pineapple," a fruit that isn't actually related to either pine trees or apples.
Alight or in dark, my face is a leer. In a field with my brothers, you'll find me without bother, For that autumn day is mine.
A pumpkin, once carved into a jack-o'-lantern, has a leering face lit from within, and pumpkins are harvested together in a field each autumn, especially around Halloween.
A little pool with two layers of wall around it. One white and soft and the other dark and hard, amidst a light brown grassy lawn with an outline of a green grass. What am I?
A coconut has a soft white husk fiber layer and a hard dark brown shell around its 'pool' of coconut water, growing on grassy-looking palm-lined ground.
What makes a loud noise when changing its jacket, becomes larger but weighs less?
Popcorn kernels burst loudly out of their hulls ("jacket"), expand much larger in volume, and lose a little weight as moisture turns to steam and escapes.
I ate one and threw away two.
Eating an oyster means consuming the one soft body inside while discarding its two hinged shell halves.
The virgin gave birth to a child and threw away the blanket.
Many banana varieties bear fruit without pollination (a 'virgin' birth), and the plant sheds its flower bract (the 'blanket') as the fruit develops.
You have to travel far before you turn it over. What is it?
An odometer's digits 'turn over' to the next round number only after the car has traveled enough miles.
It stands upright and can be quite grand. Its secret is not hidden but right at hand. What is it?
An upright piano stands tall, a grand piano is the largest and most impressive kind, and its "secret" -- the keys that make its music -- is right there under the player's hands.
Neither bought nor sold but more valuable than gold. It is built but not by hand. What is it?
Trust can't be purchased and is more precious than money; it's built slowly through actions and honesty, not by physical construction.
The leaves are on the fruit, the fruit is on the leaves. What is it?
A pineapple's leafy crown sprouts directly from the top of its fruit, so its leaves and fruit are literally attached to each other.
You can't live without doing this, and we all do it at the same time. Yet many wish it wasn't happening. What is it?
Every living person ages at the same steady rate with each passing day, even though many people wish they could stop it.
It can be used onstage or to express admiration. What is it?
"Props" are physical objects used in a stage production, and "giving someone props" is slang for expressing admiration or respect.
You can always see it, but it's too far away to touch. Mountains rest on it, and at sea it surrounds you. What is it?
The horizon is the visible line where earth meets sky -- always seen, never reached, appearing under mountains and encircling you at sea.
This old one runs forever, but never moves at all. He has not lungs nor throat, but still a mighty roaring call. What is it?
A waterfall's water is always flowing and roaring loudly, yet the waterfall itself, as a landform, stays fixed in one place.
Used on a diamond and left on a board. It's great for a gymnast his grip to restore. What is it?
Chalk is rubbed on hands for grip near the baseball diamond and used by gymnasts on the beam or rings, and it's also left as marks on a chalkboard.
It gets passed among men and builds without growing. It serves to injure from a source unknowing. What is it?
A lie spreads from person to person, growing more damaging the further it travels, and it can hurt someone even though its target may never know where it started.
This has no beginning, middle or end, and all the greatest thinkers see it but can't comprehend. What is it?
The vastness of space (or the infinite universe) has no clear starting or ending point, and even the greatest scientific minds struggle to fully grasp its scale.
It is the assumed nocturnal symbol of Mr. Wayne. What is it?
Bruce Wayne is the secret identity of Batman, who adopted the bat as his nighttime crime-fighting symbol.
Through its wounds, water does run. It once held many but now has none. What is it?
A shipwreck's hull is breached ('wounded') so water flows freely through it, and though it once carried passengers, it now sits empty on the seafloor.
Never alive but practically extinct. How we miss the letters pressing the ribbon of ink. What is it?
A typewriter was never a living thing, but it's now a nearly extinct technology, once used to press keys against an inked ribbon to print each letter.
Tomorrow's yesterday. Yesterday's tomorrow. What is it?
From tomorrow's perspective, today is 'yesterday,' and from yesterday's perspective, today is 'tomorrow' -- today is the constant.
It rows quickly with four oars but never comes out from under his own roof. What is it?
A turtle's four legs work like oars propelling it through water, while its shell serves as a permanent roof it never leaves.
It is everything to someone, and nothing to everyone else. What is it?
A person's own mind or inner world is the whole of their experience, yet completely inaccessible and meaningless to anyone else.
You eat something you neither plant nor plow. It is the son of water, but if water touches it, it dies. What is it?
Salt is produced by evaporating seawater, but the moment fresh water touches it again, it dissolves and effectively 'dies' as a solid.
Covered in stone and sun. It's home to many but also none. What is it?
A cemetery is filled with stone headstones out in the open, and while it "houses" many graves, no one is actually living there.
A circle of stones, never in rows. Stacked one on the other, mystery it sows. What is it?
Stonehenge is the famous prehistoric circle of massive standing and stacked stones whose original purpose remains a mystery.
It can't be seen or felt. It can't be touched or smelt. Behind stars and under hills, all emptiness it fills. What is it?
Space is intangible and undetectable by the senses directly, yet it exists behind every star and beneath every hill, filling all the emptiness of the universe.
It stands on one leg with its heart in its head. What is it?
A cabbage grows on a single stalk (its 'leg') and its dense center of leaves is called its 'heart,' located inside its round head.
A home of wood in a wooded place, but built not by hand. High above the earthen ground, it holds its pale blue gems. What is it?
A bird's nest is built naturally from twigs high in a tree, and it often holds pale blue eggs, like those of a robin.
Born at the same time as the world, destined to live as long as the world, and yet never five weeks old. What is it?
The moon has existed since almost the beginning of the world, but its visible phase resets every month, so it's never more than about four weeks 'old' at a time.
A mile from end to end, yet as close to as a friend. A precious commodity, freely given. Seen on the dead and on the living. Found on the rich, poor, short and tall, but shared among children most of all. What is it?
This plays on the fact that the word 'smile' contains 'mile': it stretches from end to end across your face, yet is as close and freely given as a friend's affection.
The sharp slim blade, that cuts the wind. What is it?
Individual strands of grass are called 'blades' because of their thin, sharp shape, even though they only sway in the wind rather than cutting it.
Round like a dishpan and smaller than a bathtub, but the ocean can't fill it. What is it?
A sieve's mesh bottom lets water pass straight through no matter how much you pour in, even an entire ocean's worth.
It's something you always have but you always leave behind. What is it?
Your fingerprints are unique to you and travel everywhere with you, yet every surface you touch keeps a copy of them behind.
Big as a biscuit, deep as a cup, but even a river can't fill it up. What is it?
A strainer is full of holes, so no matter how much water is poured through it -- even a river's worth -- it can never actually be filled up.
A hill full, a hole full; yet you cannot catch a bowl full. What is it?
Mist can settle thickly over hills and hollows, but because it's just suspended water vapor it slips through any container you try to scoop it with.
Born of sorrow, grows with age. You need a lot to be a sage. What is it?
Wisdom often comes from enduring hardship and builds up over a lifetime, and having plenty of it is what makes someone a sage.
What is it that no man wants, but no man wants to lose?
Nobody wants to be sued, yet once a lawsuit begins nobody wants to end up on the losing side of it.
If an electric train is traveling south, which way is the smoke going?
This is a trick question: electric trains don't burn fuel, so they produce no smoke at all.
What has you stop on green and go on red?
A watermelon's green rind is where you 'stop' (it's inedible), while its red flesh is where you 'go' (dig in and eat) -- a counterintuitive color-based pun.
What zips through the sky with a tail of fire and dust. It could be an omen, its origin to discuss?
A comet streaks across the sky trailing fire and dust, and has historically been viewed as an omen.
The eight of us go forth not back to protect our king from a foe's attack. What are we?
In chess, there are exactly eight of these pieces, and they can only move forward, defending the king's side.
Sleeping during the day, I hide away. Watchful through the night, I open at dawn's light. But only for the briefest time, do I shine. And then I hide away. And sleep through the day.
The imagery of something hidden by day and briefly shining at dawn points to sunrise, though the poem's talk of being "watchful through the night" and repeating daily fits a recurring natural cycle only loosely -- the source key gives "sunrise" as the intended answer.
What can be measured but not seen?
You can track this passing on a clock, but you can never actually see it directly.
People walk in and out of me. They push and I follow. When they walk out on me, I close up and I stay waiting for the next person to walk into my life when I have a more open mind. What am I?
This describes automatic doors: people constantly walk through, they open and shut ('a more open mind') for the next visitor, and closing behind you completes the metaphor.
Runs smoother than any rhyme, loves to fall but cannot climb.
Rain streams down smoothly and effortlessly falls to earth, but it can never go the opposite direction and climb back up.
They come to witness the night without being called, a sailor's guide and a poet's tears. They are lost to the sight each day without the hand of a thief.
Stars appear every night unbidden, have long guided sailors navigating the seas, inspire poetic imagery, and vanish from view each day as daylight "steals" them away.
Almost everyone needs it, asks for it, gives it. But almost nobody takes it.
People constantly ask for and hand out advice, but it's a common joke that very few people actually follow ("take") the advice they're given.
A fashion statement whose name sounds like the upper part of a mobile war machine.
"Tank top" combines "tank" (an armored war vehicle) with "top," its upper part.
Man's most important invention.
Harnessing fire is often cited as one of humanity's most transformative early achievements, enabling cooking, warmth, and protection.
This is a shape and a symbol that we literally cannot live without.
Both a geometric-like symbol and a vital organ, this shape keeps you alive by pumping blood.
Come up and let us go. Go down and here we stay.
Raising an anchor ('come up') lets a ship sail away, while dropping it ('go down') keeps the ship in place.
If the day before yesterday is the 23rd, then what is the day after tomorrow.
If the day before yesterday is the 23rd, today is the 25th, so the day after tomorrow (today plus two) is the 27th.
I am nothing but holes tied to holes, yet am strong as iron.
A chain is made of connected metal links (essentially "holes" of metal), yet together they form something very strong.
It is hate and has hate in it, but it isn't hate.
The word "hatred" literally contains the word "hate" within it, yet "hatred" describes the broader condition or state rather than the single emotion alone.
I have a thousand wheels, but move I do not. Call me what I am, call me a lot.
A parking lot holds hundreds or thousands of parked, stationary car wheels, and the riddle puns on calling it a 'lot.'
What do people want the least on their hands?
Nobody wants to be restrained by handcuffs, which are fastened directly onto the hands.
A deep well full of knives
Your teeth line the inside of your mouth like blades lining a deep well.
Some are quick to take it. Others must be coaxed. Those who choose to take it gain and lose the most.
Taking a big risk can lead to the greatest rewards, but also the greatest losses.
The more you take the more you leave behind.
Each step you take leaves behind a footprint or trace, so taking more steps leaves more behind.
In spring I look gay, Covered in a green array, The warmer it gets the more clothing I wear, As the cold grows, I throw away my clothes.
A tree looks lush and green ('gay') in spring, grows fuller leaves as it warms, and sheds its leaves ('clothing') as winter turns cold.
What can't you see, hear or feel, until it's too late. What shadows love, and shopkeepers hate?
A thief strikes quietly and unnoticed until it's too late, likes to hide in shadows, and is unwelcome in any shop.
If you have me, you want to tell me. If you tell me, you don't have me.
The moment you share a secret with someone, it stops being a secret -- its whole nature depends on staying untold.