129+ Riddles for High Schoolers with Answers for 2026

Imagine sitting in class one day when your teacher asks a puzzling question. Everyone around you is scratching their heads, thinking.

How on earth do we solve this? And then, a spark lights up in your mind—and you feel a thrill.

That’s the fun of Riddles for High Schoolers! These aren’t just puzzles; they’re little adventures that challenge your brain and make thinking exciting.

If it’s tricky logic, clever wordplay, or mind-bending scenarios, each riddle is a new challenge waiting for you.

Get ready to explore the power of your mind while having a blast!

Let’s dive in!

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Logic Riddles for High Schoolers

• Riddle: What has keys but can’t open locks?
  Answer: A keyboard.
  
• What runs but never walks?
  Answer: A river.
  
• What gets wetter the more it dries?
  Answer: A towel.
  
• I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. What am I?
  Answer: An echo.
  
• What has a head, a tail, but no body?
  Answer: A coin.
  
• What can fill a room but takes up no space?
  Answer: Light.
  
• What has one eye but can’t see?
  Answer: A needle.
  
• What goes up but never comes down?
  Answer: Your age.
  
• The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
  Answer: Footsteps.
  
• What has many teeth but cannot bite?
  Answer: A comb.
  
• What breaks but never falls, and what falls but never breaks?
  Answer: Day breaks, night falls.
  
• What has a neck but no head?
  Answer: A bottle.
  
• What has a thumb and four fingers but isn’t alive?
  Answer: A glove.
  
• What has cities but no houses, rivers but no water, and forests but no trees?
  Answer: A map.
  
• What begins with T, ends with T, and has T inside?
  Answer: A teapot.
  

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Math Riddles for High Schoolers

• If two’s company and three’s a crowd, what are four and five?
  Answer: Nine.
  
• I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What am I?
  Answer: Seven.
  
• What three numbers give the same answer when multiplied and added?
  Answer: 1, 2, and 3.
  
• You buy a $10 item and pay with a $20 bill. The shopkeeper has no change, so he gets change from a neighbor. Later the neighbor says the bill was fake. How much did the shopkeeper lose?
  Answer: $20.
  
• A farmer has 17 sheep; all but 9 die. How many are left?
  Answer: 9.
  
• Multiply me by any number and the result will always remain the same. What number am I?
  Answer: Zero.
  
• What two whole numbers multiply to 24 but add to 11?
  Answer: 3 and 8.
  
• A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the ball?
  Answer: 5 cents.
  
• How many times can you subtract 10 from 100?
  Answer: Once.
  
• What number becomes larger when flipped upside down?
  Answer: 6 (becomes 9).
  
• What number stays the same when multiplied by any other number?
  Answer: 0.
  
• What number is spelled in alphabetical order?
  Answer: Forty.
  
• What number is spelled in reverse alphabetical order?
  Answer: One.
  
• I add five to nine and get two. How?
  Answer: On a clock (9 + 5 = 2).
  
• What comes after a million but before a trillion?
  Answer: A billion.
  

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Wordplay Riddles for High Schoolers

• What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
  Answer: Short.
  
• What begins with an E but only has one letter?
  Answer: An envelope.
  
• What five-letter word becomes shorter when you remove two letters?
  Answer: Short.
  
• What word has five letters but sounds like one?
  Answer: Queue.
  
• What word is spelled incorrectly in the dictionary?
  Answer: Incorrectly.
  
• I am a word that spelled forward means something you do every day, and backward I mean something you hate.
  Answer: Live → Evil.
  
• What word sounds the same if you remove its first, middle, or last letter?
  Answer: Empty (M-T).
  
• What word has 26 letters but only two syllables?
  Answer: Alphabet.
  
• What starts with P, ends with E, and has thousands of letters?
  Answer: Post office.
  
• What word has three syllables but is pronounced with one?
  Answer: Fire.
  
• What word starts with T and ends in T and is full of T?
  Answer: Teapot.
  
• What word has four letters and sometimes nine?
  Answer: Sometimes.
  
• What word is always spelled wrong?
  Answer: Wrong.
  
• What word has a face but no head?
  Answer: Clockface.
  
• What word is heavy forward but not backward?
  Answer: Ton.
  

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Brain Teaser Riddles for High Schoolers

• What disappears as soon as you say its name?
  Answer: Silence.
  
• You see me once in June, twice in November, but never in May. What am I?
  Answer: The letter “E.”
  
• 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 doesn’t know it.
  Answer: A coffin.
  
• What building has the most stories?
  Answer: A library.
  
• What word begins and ends with an E but only contains one letter?
  Answer: Envelope.
  
• A man pushes his car to a hotel and tells the owner he’s bankrupt. What happened?
  Answer: He’s playing Monopoly.
  
• What invention lets you look through walls?
  Answer: A window.
  
• What can travel around the world while staying in one corner?
  Answer: A stamp.
  
• What has hands but cannot clap?
  Answer: A clock.
  
• What has branches but no fruit?
  Answer: A bank.
  
• What can you catch but not throw?
  Answer: A cold.
  
• What has a bed but never sleeps?
  Answer: A river.
  
• What belongs to you but others use it more?
  Answer: Your name.
  
• What can you break without touching it?
  Answer: A promise.
  
• What has four legs and one foot?
  Answer: A bed.
  

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Funny Riddles for High Schoolers

• Why did the math book look sad?
  Answer: It had too many problems.
  
• Why don’t scientists trust atoms?
  Answer: They make up everything.
  
• Why was the computer cold?
  Answer: It forgot to close its Windows.
  
• Why can’t a bicycle stand on its own?
  Answer: It’s two-tired.
  
• Why did the scarecrow win an award?
  Answer: He was outstanding in his field.
  
• Why was the broom late?
  Answer: It swept in.
  
• Why did the golfer bring two pairs of pants?
  Answer: In case he got a hole in one.
  
• Why was the belt arrested?
  Answer: For holding up a pair of pants.
  
• Why did the tomato blush?
  Answer: It saw the salad dressing.
  
• Why don’t eggs tell jokes?
  Answer: They’d crack each other up.
  
• Why did the student eat his homework?
  Answer: His teacher said it was a piece of cake.
  
• Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
  Answer: It felt crumby.
  
• Why don’t skeletons fight?
  Answer: They don’t have the guts.
  
• Why was the stadium so cool?
  Answer: It was filled with fans.
  
• Why couldn’t the leopard play hide-and-seek?
  Answer: Because he was always spotted.
  

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Mystery Riddles for High Schoolers

• A man was found dead with a cassette recorder in hand. The tape said “I can’t go on,” then a gunshot. Yet police knew it wasn’t suicide. How?
  Answer: Someone had to rewind the tape.
  
• A woman leaves home, takes three left turns, and returns to find two masked men. Who are they?
  Answer: The catcher and umpire (baseball).
  
• A man was shot in a room with no windows and only one door, which was locked. How?
  Answer: Through the keyhole.
  
• A man walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun. The man says “thank you” and leaves. Why?
  Answer: He had hiccups.
  
• A man is found hanging in a locked room. No furniture, nothing around him. How did he do it?
  Answer: He stood on melting ice.
  
• A woman shoots her husband, holds him underwater, then hangs him—yet he lives. How?
  Answer: She’s a photographer.
  
• A man dies of thirst in his own home. How?
  Answer: He lived in a submarine that sank.
  
• A boy and doctor are not related but the doctor is the boy’s mother. How?
  Answer: The doctor is female.
  
• A truck driver goes the wrong way down a one-way street but doesn’t break the law. How?
  Answer: He was walking.
  
• A man saw a bear and immediately knew what color it was. How?
  Answer: It was at the North Pole—white bear.
  
• A man pushes his car into a lake. Why?
  Answer: It’s a toy car.
  
• A man dies on his 25th birthday but lived 50 years. How?
  Answer: He was born on February 29.
  
• A man goes outside in the rain without umbrella or hat but doesn’t get wet. Why?
  Answer: He’s bald.
  
• A man is lying dead in a field wearing only shorts. Around him are 52 bicycles. What happened?
  Answer: Bicycle playing cards — he lost a game and was killed.
  
• Two people in a room are dead. The room is locked. There’s broken glass and water. What happened?
  Answer: A fishbowl fell—fish died.
  

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School Themed Riddles for High Schoolers

• What has a lot of words but never speaks?
  Answer: A book.
  
• Why did the student bring a ladder to school?
  Answer: To go to high school.
  
• What classroom has no walls?
  Answer: A Google Classroom.
  
• What has rulers but no kingdom?
  Answer: A pencil box.
  
• What type of tree can you hold in your hand?
  Answer: A palm tree.
  
• What can you write with but never erase?
  Answer: A permanent marker.
  
• What test should students never study for?
  Answer: A blood test.
  
• Why did the teacher wear sunglasses?
  Answer: Because her students were too bright.
  
• What room do ghosts avoid in school?
  Answer: The living room.
  
• What kind of school do surfers attend?
  Answer: Boarding school.
  
• What do librarians take fishing?
  Answer: Bookworms.
  
• What kind of math do birds love?
  Answer: Owl-gebra.
  
• Where do pencils go on vacation?
  Answer: Pencil-vania.
  
• What’s a teacher’s favorite nation?
  Answer: Expla-nation.
  
• What do you call a teacher who never frowns?
  Answer: A pro-tractor.
  

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Challenging Riddles for High Schoolers

• What has four fingers and a thumb but isn’t alive?
  Answer: A glove.
  
• What can be cracked, made, told, and played?
  Answer: A joke.
  
• What has words but never talks?
  Answer: A book.
  
• What begins with P and ends with E and has over 1,000 letters?
  Answer: Post office.
  
• I have branches but no fruit, leaves, or trunk. What am I?
  Answer: A bank.
  
• What has eyes but cannot see?
  Answer: A potato.
  
• What has a ring but no finger?
  Answer: A telephone.
  
• What can be caught but never thrown?
  Answer: A cold.
  
• What has roots but never grows?
  Answer: A family tree.
  
• What doesn’t get any wetter no matter how much it rains?
  Answer: The ocean.
  
• What has one head, one foot, and four legs?
  Answer: A bed.
  
• What begins and ends with an E but has only one letter?
  Answer: Envelope.
  
• What has 13 hearts but no other organs?
  Answer: A deck of cards.
  
• What has a face but no mouth?
  Answer: A clock.
  
• What has a ring but no finger?
  Answer: A bell.
  

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Conclusion

These riddles for high schoolers mix clever logic, humor, and creative thinking to challenge teens in a fun and engaging way.

If used in the classroom, at home, or during group activities, they help sharpen reasoning skills while providing plenty of laughs and aha! moments.

Bookmark this list or share it with friends to keep the brain-teasing fun going anytime!

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