37 puzzles with answers · tap one to see its answer
Word Riddles and Word Teasers
Word riddles play with letters, spelling and meaning: anagrams, hidden words, words that change when you add or take away a letter, words with two meanings and puzzles written like a rebus. These 37 use everyday American English, and each answer explains the wordplay. If you like them, the word games page has puzzles to play.
Every puzzle was solved by a second reader who had not seen the answer, on November 9, 2026.
Rearrange the five letters of CANOE to name a huge body of salt water.
Answer: OCEAN
Why: CANOE and OCEAN use exactly the same five letters in a different order. Fittingly, a canoe is something you might paddle on the water.
Which word for a dog ends with a hidden number?
Answer: Canine
Why: The last four letters of CANINE spell NINE.
If the word STAND is written directly above the letter I, what everyday phrase does it show?
Answer: I understand
Why: The letter I sits under the word STAND: I under stand, or I understand.
What kind of small boat, paddled by one or two people, has a name that reads the same backward as forward?
Answer: Kayak
Why: KAYAK spelled backward is still KAYAK, which makes it a palindrome.
Swap the first letters of the two words in 'belly jeans' to name a chewy candy.
Answer: Jelly beans
Why: Trading the B and the J turns 'belly jeans' into 'jelly beans'.
My first is something you drive, my second is an animal you cuddle, and my whole lies on the floor. What am I?
Answer: Carpet
Why: CAR plus PET makes CARPET, which covers the floor.
Which letter is silent in every one of these words: knee, knot, knit, knock?
Answer: K
Why: Each word starts with KN, and in each one only the N is sounded, so the K is silent.
What past-tense verb meaning 'came first in a contest' sounds exactly like a number?
Answer: Won
Why: WON, as in 'she won the race', is pronounced the same as ONE.
What three-letter word can follow butter, dragon and fire to make the names of three insects?
Answer: Fly
Why: Butterfly, dragonfly and firefly are all insects.
This fruit has lost all of its vowels: STRWBRRY. What is it?
Answer: Strawberry
Why: Put back an A after STR and an E after STRAWB and you get STRAWBERRY.
Which 7-letter word meaning 'out of the ordinary' contains the letter U three times?
Answer: Unusual
Why: U-N-U-S-U-A-L has a U in the first, third and fifth places, which is unusual in itself.
Add one letter to the end of a word for a warm squeeze, and it becomes a word meaning enormous. What is the new word?
Answer: Huge
Why: HUG plus E makes HUGE.
UNITED means joined together. Rearrange its six letters to get a word that means undone, like shoelaces that have come loose.
Answer: UNTIED
Why: Swapping the I and the T turns UNITED into UNTIED, so the same six letters spell two words with nearly opposite meanings.
Spell the word for a sliding box in a dresser backward, and you get a word for a prize. What is the prize word?
Answer: REWARD
Why: The sliding box is a DRAWER, and DRAWER read from right to left is REWARD.
A fruit is hidden in this sentence, reading straight through and ignoring the spaces and punctuation: 'Pal, I meant every word.' What is the fruit?
Answer: Lime
Why: Run the words together as palimeanteveryword: the letters L-I-M-E sit side by side, spanning 'Pal', 'I' and 'meant'.
In lowercase, this word means to rub something until it shines. Capitalize it and it describes people from a country in Europe, and it is even pronounced differently. What is the word?
Answer: Polish
Why: You polish (rhymes with 'abolish') a pair of shoes, while Polish (said 'POH-lish') describes people from Poland.
I'm a long pole with a pointed tip that people once used to catch fish. Drop my first letter and I'm a fruit; drop the next one too and I'm what you hear with. What am I?
Answer: SPEAR
Why: SPEAR minus the S is PEAR, and PEAR minus the P is EAR.
What two-word phrase for a quick look behind you does this rebus show: ECNALG
Answer: Backward glance (or glance back)
Why: ECNALG is the word GLANCE written backward.
I'm right in the middle of water but nowhere in a lake. I begin every tomorrow and end every start. What am I?
Answer: The letter T
Why: T is the middle letter of WATER, LAKE has no T, TOMORROW starts with T, and START ends with T.
Which two letters of the alphabet, said out loud one after the other, make a word for wanting what someone else has?
Answer: N and V (envy)
Why: Say N and V quickly and you hear 'envy', the feeling of wanting someone else's things or luck.
Which job title contains three pairs of double letters in a row?
Answer: Bookkeeper
Why: BOOKKEEPER has OO, then KK, then EE, one pair right after another.
Stress its second syllable and this word means to say no. Stress its first syllable and it means trash. What's the word?
Answer: Refuse
Why: To re-FUSE is to turn something down, while REF-use is garbage. The spelling never changes, only the stress.
What word can mean both wiping fine powder off a shelf and sprinkling fine powder onto a cake?
Answer: Dust
Why: You dust a shelf to remove dust, and you dust a cake to add sugar. It's one of the rare words that can mean its own opposite.
Swap two letters that sit side by side in a word for milk and cheese products, and you get a book for private daily notes. What is the book?
Answer: Diary
Why: DAIRY with its A and I traded becomes DIARY.
Add a single space to the word 'nowhere' and it means nearly the opposite. Where does the space go?
Answer: Now here
Why: 'Nowhere' means in no place at all, while 'now here' means present in this very place.
Write a three-letter word for mother in capital letters, then turn the paper upside down. You now see a word you might shout when amazed. What is it?
Answer: WOW
Why: Upside down, each M in MOM looks like a W and the O stays an O, so MOM becomes WOW.
What common phrase does this rebus show: R|E|A|D|I|N|G
Answer: Reading between the lines
Why: The letters of READING are spread out with a line between each pair, so you read between the lines.
This sentence uses all but two letters of the alphabet: 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy cat.' Which two letters are missing?
Answer: D and G
Why: Every other letter appears somewhere in the sentence. The usual version ends with 'lazy dog', and swapping 'dog' for 'cat' loses the D and the G.
Which 7-letter name of a giant tree contains every one of the five vowels?
Answer: Sequoia
Why: SEQUOIA has an E, a U, an O, an I and an A, all packed into seven letters.
Which number, spelled out in English, has exactly as many letters as the number it names?
Answer: Four
Why: FOUR has four letters. Smaller numbers have longer names (one, two and three take 3, 3 and 5 letters), and bigger ones have names far shorter than their value.
What tropical-sounding word does this rebus show: DICE DICE
Answer: Paradise
Why: Two dice make a pair of dice, and 'pair-a-dice' sounds like paradise.
What do these four words have in common: defrost, sighing, thirsty, study?
Answer: Each holds three consecutive letters of the alphabet
Why: Defrost has D-E-F, sighing has G-H-I, thirsty has R-S-T and study has S-T-U: three letters standing side by side in alphabet order.
Which number, written in English as a single word, has all of its letters in alphabetical order?
Answer: Forty
Why: The letters of forty (f-o-r-t-y) run in alphabet order. No other number word does this; even 'four' fails because U comes after R.
The word rapscallion hides a shorter word with the same meaning, its letters in order but not all side by side. What is the shorter word?
Answer: Rascal
Why: Take R and A, skip the P, then take S, C, A and L: r-a-(p)-s-c-a-l spells RASCAL, and a rapscallion is a rascal.
Add an S to the end of a plural word for a king's sons, and it turns into a word for one royal daughter. What is the new word?
Answer: Princess
Why: PRINCES (more than one prince) plus S is PRINCESS: adding an S turned a plural into a singular.
Adding 'in-' to the front of a word usually flips its meaning. Which fire-warning word means exactly the same thing with or without it?
Answer: Flammable (inflammable means the same)
Why: Both flammable and inflammable mean 'catches fire easily'. Because people misread 'inflammable' as 'not flammable', warning labels mostly use 'flammable'.
What 9-letter word meaning 'good points' or 'powers' has only one vowel?
Answer: Strengths
Why: S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H-S has nine letters, and E is its only vowel.