Good Brain Teasers

These brain teasers are actually just puzzles that need lateral thinking, which are meant to bring a smile to your face - hopefully.

The answers are given below. (Select the balnk space)

1. What is as big as you are and yet does not weigh anything?
2. Two cannibals were chatting as they had their dinner. One complained that he really quite disliked his new mother-in-law. What was the advice given to him by his companion?
3. Paul’s height is six feet, he’s an assistant at a butcher’s shop, and wears size 9 shoes. What does he weigh?
4. What types of words are these: Madam, civic, eye, level.
5. What ends everything always?
    
6. When you have me, you feel like sharing me. But, if you do share me, you don’t have me. What am I?
7. A cowboy rode into town on Friday, stayed three days, and rode out again on Friday. How did he do that?
8. The person who makes it has no need for it. The person who purchases it does not use it. The person who does use it does not know he or she is. What is it?
9. It is an insect, and the first part of its name is the name of another insect. What is it?
10. 2 fathers and 2 sons go fishing. Each of them catches one fish. So why do they bring home only 3 fishes?
11. Which is the longest word in English?
12. You can hold it without using your hands or arms. What is it?
13. What do the letter ‘t’ and an island have in common?
14. Which is the word in English that has nine letters, and remains a word at each step even when you remove one letter from it, right up to a single letter remaining. List each letter as you remove them, along with the resulting word at each step.
15. Complete this sequence of letters: o, t, t, f, f, s, s, _, _, _.

Answers:

1. Your shadow.
2. So just finish your vegetables.
3. Meat.
4. They are palindromes; they read the same both ways.
5. The alphabet ‘g’.
6. A secret.
7. His horse’s name is Friday.
8. A coffin.
9. Beetle.
10. Because the fishing group comprises of a grandfather, his son, and his son’s son – hence just three people.
11. Smiles - Because a ‘mile’ exists between the two S’s. While that is a good answer to the riddle, the actual longest English word is 'floccinaucinihilipilification'- which means'to describe something as worthless, or turning something into being worthless by deprecating it.'
12. Your breath.
13. Both are in water - WaTer.
14. ‘Startling’ is the word. Begin by removing ‘i’, which makes it ‘staring’, then take away the ‘t’, making it ‘staring’, and so on – string; sing; sin; in; and, I.
15. e, n, t – The first letter of the numbers from one to ten.