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Family Riddles (with Answers)

Family riddles are meant for mixed ages: clear language, a fair twist, and a payoff that works whether you are eight or eighty. They are ideal for dinners, reunions, and quiet evenings when you want a shared puzzle without a competitive edge. Answers are shown with every riddle so grandparents, kids, and teens can all check reasoning together.

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Use the questions below as conversation starters rather than tests. If someone gets stuck, read the line that names a relationship or quantity again; family riddles often hide the turn in a word you stopped noticing. For more specialized collections, jump to kids riddles for gentler setups or adult riddles when the group wants a harder edge, always with solutions attached.

Riddles in this collection

  1. In a year, there are 12 months. Seven months have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?
  2. Which is heavier? A pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?
  3. What is full of holes but can still hold water?
  4. A plane crashes on the border of the U.S. and Canada. Where do they bury the survivors?
  5. What can you hold without ever touching or using your hands?
  6. You are a cyclist in a cross-country race. Just before the crossing finish line, you overtake the person in second place. In what place did you finish?
  7. A man is looking at a photograph of someone. His friend asks who it is. The man replies, “Brothers and sisters, I have none. But that man’s father is my father’s son.” Who was in the photograph?
  8. Your dad tells you that he will pay you $6.00 an hour for the 6 seconds that you take to wash your hands before dinner. How much did you make washing your hands?
  9. Guess the next three letters in the series GTNTL.
  10. A boy is walking down the road with a doctor. While the boy is the doctor’s son, the doctor is not the boy’s father. Then who is the doctor?
  11. Your parents have six sons including you and each son has one sister. How many people are in the family?
  12. What 5-letter word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
  13. What kind of coat is always wet when you put it on?
  14. What has 13 hearts, but no other organs?
  15. What do you break before you use it?
  16. A man rode in to town on Tuesday, and left two days later on Tuesday. How so?
  17. Why can’t someone living in Maine be buried in Florida?
  18. If a rooster laid a brown egg and a white egg, what kind of chicks would hatch?
  19. How much dirt is in a hole 4 feet deep and 2 feet wide?
  20. If you have it, you want to share it. If you share it, you don't have it. What is it?
  21. If you were in a dark room with a candle, a woodstove, a match and a gas lamp which do you light first?
  22. A barrel of water weighs 20 pounds. What must you add to it to make it weigh 12 pounds?
  23. A farmer had seventeen sheep, all but nine died, how many did he have left?
  24. Can a man legally marry his widow's sister in the state of California?
  25. A boy was rushed to the hospital emergency room. The ER doctor saw the boy and said, “I cannot operate on this boy. He is my son.” But the doctor was not the boy’s father. How could that be?
  26. Beth’s mother has three daughters. One is called Lara, the other one is Sara. What is the name of the third daughter?
  27. What’s full of holes but still holds water?
  28. I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What number am I?
  29. I have a large money box, 48 centemeters square and 42 centemeters tall. Roughly how many coins can I place in my empty money box?
  30. A woman shot her husband. Then she held him underwater for 5 minutes, then she finally hung him. 5 minutes later they both walked out and enjoyed a nice dinner. How is this possible?
  31. Farmer Brown came to town with some watermelons. He sold half of them plus half a melon, and found that he had one whole melon left. How many melons did he take to town?
  32. A man moved into a new house and decided he was tired after the journey and turned of all the lights and went to bed. The next morning he had killed 365 people how could this be? he does not sleep wa…
  33. Even if you give this to someone else, you still get to keep it. What is it?
  34. At night they come without being fetched. By day they are lost without being stolen. What are they?
  35. It goes up, but at the same time goes down. Up toward the sky, and down toward the ground. It's present tense and past tense too, come for a ride, just me and you. What is it?
  36. A certain number has three digits. The sum of the three digits equals 36 times this number. Seven times the left digit plus 9 is equal to 5 times the sum of the two other digits. 8 times the second d…
  37. A man was stabbed in the heart, no one tried to save him but he didn’t die. How is that possible?
  38. I always follow my brother but you cannot see me, only him. You cannot hear him but you can hear me. What are we?
  39. How do you make the number 7 even without addition, subtraction, multiplication or division?
  40. If you tell me the truth I will kill you with my sword, if you tell me a lie I will kill you with my spell. What must you say to survive?
  41. It belongs to you but you don’t use it. It does not belong to other people but they use it. What is it?
  42. If the Vice President of the United States dies, who becomes President?
  43. It's shorter than the rest, but when you're happy, you raise it up like it's the best. What is it?
  44. If everyone bought a white car, what would we have?
  45. I am a word. If you pronounce me rightly, it will be wrong. If you pronounce me wrong it is right? What word am I?
  46. It stands on one leg with its heart in its head. What is it?
  47. It has hands but cannot clap? What is it?
  48. This kind of coat can you put on only when it is wet. What is it?
  49. Five add six is eleven, but six add seven is one. How is that possible?
  50. A man is lying shot on the road. The police come to investigate. Right away, they know who shot him. Why?

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