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| Numbers 1-31 puzzles
are from NPR's Puzzlemaster, Will Shortz. Starting with number 32, sources will vary.
Scroll down for the answers, matching the puzzle number to the
answer.
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56. These words can all have a letter added and then be rearranged to make a new 5-letter word. The letters added spell a 9-letter word. What are the new words?
HERB,
BANG,
KEEN,
SUIT,
QUAD,
WHEY,
CELL,
TOIL,
WILD |
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| 55. There are 5 houses in 5 different colors. In each house lives a person of a different nationality. The 5 owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet. Using the clues below can you determine who owns the fish?
The Brit lives in a red house.
The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the immediate left of the white house.
The green house owner drinks coffee.
The person who smokes Pall Mall raises birds.
The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
The man living in the house right in the middle drinks milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blend lives next door to the one who keeps cats.
The man who keeps horses lives next door to the man who smokes Dunhill.
The owner who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
The man who smokes Blend has a neighbor who drinks water. |
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| 54. Think of two words that are opposites, beginning with the letters 'H' and 'M.' Change the 'H' to an 'M.' Say the result out loud, and you'll have the name of something nice to eat. What is it? |
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| 53. Name a well-known university. Move the last letter three places earlier in the name. The result will be a phrase meaning 'represent.' What's the university and what's the phrase? |
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| 52. Take
the phrase 'atlas of the world,' change the 'E' to an 'R,' and rearrange all the letters to name two cities that are closely related. |
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| 51. Take the word "DEAD-HEADED", it's a hyphenated word. It containes one "H," two "A's," three "E's" and four "D's." In the world of word play this is called a pyramid word because it has the increasing letter frequencies one, two, three and four. Can you think of another 10-letter pyramid word that is a kind of shirt? One letter in it appears once, one twice, one three times and one four times. Hint: the letter that appears just once is a 'V.' |
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| 50. John wrote the name of a U.S. state on a sheet of paper in capital letters. He then turned his page upside down and looked at it in a mirror.
It read exactly as he had written it.
What is the name of the state? |
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| 49.
A farmer
returns from the market, where he bought a goat, a cabbage and a wolf (what a crazy market :-). On the way home he must cross a river. His boat is small and won’t fit more than one of his purchases. He cannot leave the goat alone with the cabbage because the goat would eat it, nor he can leave the goat alone with the wolf because the goat would be eaten.
How can the farmer get everything on the other side? |
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| 48. Take the phrase 'Receiving Line'. Rearrange these 13 letters to name a common profession. |
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| 47. Take the plural name of one animal and the singular name of another animal. Say the two words out loud one after the other and you'll name a country. What are the animals, and what is the country? |
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| 46. Angela left on a trip the day after the day before yesterday and she will be back on the eve of the day after tomorrow. How many days is she away? |
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| 45. Take the name 'Pensacola,' remove one letter and rearrange the letters that remain to get the first and last name of a famous person in American history. Who is it? |
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| 44. Take 'tire' and 'exhaust.' They're both things a car has. But as verbs, in a non-car sense, they're synonyms. The challenge is to name 2 articles of apparel, things to wear, each with 4 letters, and as verbs, in a non-apparel sense, the 2 words are synonyms. What words are they? |
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| 43. Think of a familiar phrase in five words that means 'tongue tied.' One word in it has one letter, one word has two letters, one has three, one has four and one has five — though not necessarily in that order. What is the phrase? |
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| 42. Find a chain of 'C' words to connect 'carbon' to 'circuit.' Each pair of words completes a compound word or familiar two-word phrase (e.g. CASH COW or CREDIT CARD). There are seven words between 'carbon' and 'circuit' for a total of nine words. Each word has to start with 'C,' and each has to combine with the words before and after to make a compound word or familiar two-word phrase. |
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| 41. Write down the digits from 2 to 7, in order. Add two mathematical symbols to get an expression equaling 2010. |
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| 40.Name a country somewhere in the world. Insert a 'Z.' The result can be broken up into 3 consecutive words. The first word is a popular brand name. The second word is something this product uses, and the third word is the kind of product it is. What's the country? |
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| 39. Assume that penguins live with a density of 1,000 penguins per square mile and can run at an average speed of 7 miles per hour on land and swim at 20 miles per hour. Also assume that a polar bear has a territory of 10 square miles, can run at 25 miles per hour and swim at 10 miles per hour, how many penguins will an average polar bear eat in any given month, remembering that a polar bear could, as a maximum, only eat one penguin per hour and 7% of the land is next to the sea. |
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38. Why aren’t manhole covers square?
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| 37. In each sentence an animal is concealed. The first sentence has dog concealed. Can you find the others? 1. What shall I do, Gertrude? 2. Asking nutty questions can be most annoying. 3. A gold key is not a common key. 4. Horace tries in school to be a very good boy. 5. People who drive too fast are likely to be arrested. 6. John came late to his arithmetic class. 7. I enjoy listening to music at night. |
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| 36. Every answer is a two-word phrase in which the first word begins with BE and the second begins with ST: 1. Nickname for Utah 2. One jewel of horse racing's Triple Crown 3. Cause of red bump on the skin 4. What separates Alaska from Russia 5. Star of "Zoolander" and "Meet the Fockers" 6. Once a giant among US steel manufacturers |
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| 35. Here are some well-known expressions rewritten into "Cliff-ese". For those of you who don't know what that means, he was a very wordy person on the TV show "Cheers" and never used a small word where a larger one would work. Try to figure out the phrases in simpler terms:
a)
To place a primitive agricultural conveyance in a position anterior to the animal Equus caballus. b)
It requires a number of people greater than one to perform a terpsichorean series of low dips and twisting steps on the toes. c)
To accumulate an excess of temperature beneath a circular, tight-fitting clothing component. d) Emanating from a culinary vessel into a site of pyrogenic activity. |
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| 34. Three people check into a hotel. They pay $30 to the manager and go to their room. The manager suddenly remembers that the room rate is $25 and gives $5 to the bellboy to return to the people. On the way to the room the bellboy reasons that $5 would be difficult to share among three people so he pockets $2 and gives $1 to each person. Now each person paid $10 and got back $1. So they paid $9 each, totalling $27. The bellboy has $2, totalling $29. Where is the missing $1? |
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| 33. A ship is docked in the harbor. Over the side hangs a rope ladder with rungs a foot apart. The tide rises at a rate of 9 inches per hour. At the end of 6 hours how much of the rope ladder will still remain above water, assuming that 9 feet were above the water when the tide began to rise? |
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| 32. Of all the numbers whose literal representations in capital letters consists only of straight line segments (for example, FIVE), only one number has a value equal to the number of segments used to write it. What number has this property? |
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31. Think of a common street sign with three words: four letters in the first word, four letters in the second word, and three letters in the last. Drop the last letter of the first word in the sign, and you'll get a new word that is a synonym of the last word in the sign. What is the sign? |
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| 30. Start with an eight-letter mathematics term. Remove the first, fourth and eighth letters to produce a synonym of the original word. What is it? |
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| 29. Think of a famous TV personality with five letters in the first name and four letters in the last name. Change the first letter of this celebrity's first name to M. Drop the first letter of the last name. Read the result in order, and it will spell something this person is famously known for doing many times. Who is this person? |
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28. Name a make of car containing the letter "N." Rearrange the letters to get a new word starting with "N" that names something you might put a car in. What is it? |
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| 27. Take the last name of a well-known 20th century world leader. Seven letters. Write these letters in a circle reading clockwise. Then, starting with the fourth letter of the name and reading counter clockwise, you'll name an important period in human history. What is it? |
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| 26. Name a well-known American of the past consisting of eight letters. This is the person's full name as he or she was known. Six of the letters are consonants, and all six of these consonants are Roman numerals. Who is this famous person? |
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25. Name a people of Europe. Remove the second and
third letters of this word. The remaining letters, in order, will
spell an area of Europe, that is unrelated to the people. Who are
the people and what is the area? |
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24. Take the letters of PYTHAGOREAN and re-arrange
them to make two familiar math terms. |
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23. Take the name of a geographical area in the
New World (in the western hemisphere). It's popular with tourists,
and has seven letters in its name, one of them an "A." Change the
"A" to an "S" and rearrange the result to name a geographical area
in the Old World that is also popular with tourists. What places are
these? |
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22. Think of a familiar three-word phrase in the
form of "in the blank." The word that fills the blank will start
with the letter "S." Move the "S" to the end and you'll get another
familiar phrase in the form of "in the blank." What phrases are
these? |
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21.Take the word "lore." If you insert the letter
pair "ic" twice, you get "licorice." Now take the word "horn." Add
an identical letter pair three times to this word, to get a
familiar two-word phrase. The phrase names something good puzzle
solvers have. What is it? |
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20. What eight-letter noun -- containing the
letter "B" -- is pluralized by inserting an "S" immediately before
the "B"? |
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19. Name a traditional means of
sending a communication, in eight letters. It
contains the letter "R" somewhere inside it. Drop
the "R" and rearrange the remaining letters to name
another means of communication, in seven letters.
It's a modern means of communication. Hint: Both
words start with the same letter. What words are
these?
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18. Take the word carburetor, add
two letters and rearrange the result to name another
car part. And the answer is one word. What car part
is it?
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17. Take the name Eli and add
three letters in front of it, add the same three
letters in reverse order after it to complete a
familiar two word phrase in nine letters. What is
it?
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16. Take the word "debunk," starting with
the "b" inside, read the letters forward and you get "bunk." And
starting with the "b" and reading backward, you get "bed." Together,
these two words spell "bunk bed." Now, think of a word with an "m"
inside, starting with the "m" and reading forward, you'll get one
word, and starting with the "m" and reading backward, you get
another word. And together these two words make a job title. What is
it? |
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15. Think of a four-letter word starting
with O. Change one of its letters to a new letter and rearrange to
get a new four-letter word that's a synonym of the first. Then
change one of its letters to a new letter and rearrange to get a
third four-letter word that's a synonym of the first two. What words
are these? |
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14. Name a six-letter animal. Change the second
letter to the next letter of the alphabet. Read the
result backward, and you'll name a major U.S. city.
What city is it?
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13. Take the name Eli and add three letters in
front of it, add the same three letters in reverse order after it to
complete a familiar two word phrase in nine letter. |
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12. Take the names pelican and antelope, the
first is a bird the second a mammal. The last two letters of pelican
are the first two letters of antelope, and the last two letters of
antelope are the first two of pelican, completing a loop. Can you
name another bird and mammal that this is true of? These should be
the general name of the bird and mammal not a specific breed or
gender. Hint: Each is a single word no more than eight letters. |
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11. A 10-letter word for a form of travel consists
of five consecutive symbols of chemical elements. What is it? (For
instance, if "automobile" had been the answer, AU, would represent
Gold, MO would represent Molybdenum, and BI, would represent
Bismuth. Unfortunately, the remaining bigrams, TO and LE, are not
chemical symbols.) |
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10. Name a well-known place in the United States,
with a population of at least 40,000 people. It has two words in its
name. If you reverse the last three letters of the first word you'll
get the first three letters of the second word. What is it? |
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9. Start with the name of a masked crime fighter,
who had a TV show. Add the letters L, A and rearrange the results to
get the name of another masked crime fighter who had a TV show. Who
are these characters? |
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8. Think of a word whose meaning you can make
plural by adding an A at the start. Start with a very common
singular noun, add the letter A at the beginning, and you'll make
the meaning plural. What word is it? |
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7. Take a two-word phrase meaning "a difficult
puzzle." Drop the first letter, read the remaining letters backward,
and you'll get a word for part of Alaska. What is it? |
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6. An imaginary country mints coins in three
denominations. Each denomination has an integral number, 1, 2, 3,
etc. The amounts, 20, 23 and 29, can each be made with exactly three
coins. What are the three denominations minted? |
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5. Take the word "plantation" -- it contains
the consecutive letters of the movie Patton reading from
left to right, although not consecutively. What familiar word
contains the letters of Star Wars, reading from left to
right, and not necessarily consecutively? |
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4. Name two fruits, and say their names out loud.
They sound like a two-word phrase meaning "today." What is the
phrase? |
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3. This challenge involves a
four-letter word square. Write down these four
words, one under the other: SAGA, OPAL, FELL, and
TRAY. The results spell four different words
vertically: SOFT, APER, GALA, ALLY. This square
contains three "L's" and no plurals, or verbs formed
by adding "S". The challenge is to create a similar
square with as many "L's" as possible, and no
plurals or verbs formed by adding "S". And our
reference for acceptable words will be
Merriam-Webster's eleventh Collegiate Dictionary.
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2.
Take the animal puma: the last two letters of its
name, "m," "a," start mandrill, which is a large
baboon. The last two letters of "mandrill," ll,
start llama, and the last two letters of llama,
start marmot. So, the result is a chain of four
animals, with two letter links, puma, mandrill,
llama, marmot. Can you form a similar chain of
animal names linking, hippo to ermine? And the
number of links in the chain is for you to
determine. Every animal has to be either a mammal or
a reptile. Only the general terms for animals are
allowed, not the names male, female, young, breeds,
nicknames, etc.
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| 1. Think of a seven-letter word that names a much-admired person. The first letter is "p." Replace the "p" with an "r", rearrange the result, and you'll name a person who is despised. Neither word is capitalized. Who is it? |
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56. BERTH, BEGAN, KNEEL, SUITE, SQUAD, CHEWY, CELLO, PILOT, WIELD. The added letters spell TELESCOPE.
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55.
This puzzle is usually attributed to Einstein, who may or may not have written it. The German owns the fish and the table below details the full answer:
Nationality |
Norwegian |
Dane |
Brit |
German |
Swede |
Color |
Yellow |
Blue |
Red |
Green |
White |
Beverage |
Water |
Tea |
Milk |
Coffee |
Beer |
Smokes |
Dunhill |
Blend |
Pall Mall |
Prince |
Blue Master |
Pet |
Cats |
Horses |
Birds |
Fish |
Dogs |
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| 54.
MARSHMALLOW |
| 53. STANFORD --> STAND FOR |
| 52. DALLAS / FORT WORTH |
| 51. sleeveless |
| 50. OHIO |
| 49. Take the goat to the other side. Go back, take cabbage, unload it on the other side where you load the goat back in the boat, go back to the other side and unload the goat. Take the wolf to the other side where you unload it. Go back for the goat. |
| 48. Civil Engineer |
| 47. GNUS + ELAND = NEW ZEALAND |
| 46. Three days and two nights. She left yesterday and will return tomorrow. |
| 45. Al Capone |
| 44. belt and sock |
| 43. At a loss for words |
| 42. CARBON - COPY - CAT - CALL - CENTER - COURT - CASE - CLOSED - CIRCUIT |
| 41.
2345 x 6 / 7 = 2010 |
| 40. Madagascar: Mazda, Gas, Car |
| 39. None. Polar bears live at the north pole and penguins live at the south pole. |
| 38. A manhole cover rests on a small lip inside the hole. A circular manhole cover typically will not fall into the hole because its width is the same all around.
A rectangular manhole cover, however, could fall through the hole when it is tipped upward. |
| 37. 1. dog 2. gnu 3. monkey 4. beaver 5. bear 6. camel 7. cat |
| 36. 1. Beehive State 2. Belmont Stakes 3. Bee Sting 4. Bering Strait 5. Ben Stiller 6. Bethlehem Steel |
| 35. a) Putting the cart before the horse. b)
It takes two to tango. c) Get hot under the collar. d) Out of the frying pan and into the fire. |
| 34. Originally, they paid $30, they each received back $1, they now have only paid $27. Of this $27, $25 went to the manager for the room and $2 went to the bellboy. |
| 33.. Still 9 feet because the ladder will rise with the ship. (Source: www.brainbashers.com) |
| 32.. TWENTY-NINE (Source: The Ultimate Puzzle Site at
www.puzzle.dse.nl/index_us.html) |
| 31.. Curb your dog |
| 30.. Fraction, ratio |
| 29.. Larry King, who is famous for marrying (he's been married eight times) |
| 28.. RENAULT and NEUTRAL |
| 27..
Noriega = Iron Age |
| 26..MALCOLM X |
| 25..Finlanders,
Flanders |
| 24. HEPTAGON and RAY. |
| 23. New World region:
Yucatan. Old World region: Tuscany. |
| 22. In the swing...In
the wings |
| 21. Horse Sense |
| 20. Passerby. You
pluralize it by adding "s" to make "passersby. |
| 19. Postcard and
Podcast |
| 18. Turbocharger |
| 17. Time Limit |
| 16. Diameter = meter
+ maid |
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15.Only, Lone, Sole |
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14. OCELOT/TOLEDO |
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13. Time Limit |
| 12. cardinal and
alpaca |
| 11. HELICOPTER |
| 10. Atlantic City |
| 9. Green Hornet + LA
= The Lone Ranger |
| 8.
YES /
AYES |
| 7. Hard Nut/Tundra |
| 6. The numbers are 6,
7 and 11 or 5, 9, 10S |
| 5.
STRAIGHTFORWARDNESS |
| 4. Current Date |
| 3. Will's best
answer has 7 "L's" containing these words: LILLY, ALOE, MILL, and
BALL. Coming down the row, they make LAMB, ILIA, LOLL and YELL.. |
| 2. HIPPO, PORPOISE, SEAL,
ALLIGATOR, ORANGUTAN, ANTEATER, ERMINE |
| 1. PATRIOT -- TRAITOR. |
