Printable brain teasers

Four of these five words have a smaller animal hiding inside them, spelled straight through. Which word does not?

Cover the first letter and the last letter of each word with a fingertip and read only what is left in the middle. Four creatures are sitting there in plain sight and one word has nothing living inside it at all.

Four of these words hide a colour inside them. Which word does not?

Read straight through the middle of each word and ignore what the word actually means. Four of them carry a shade you could point to on a paint chart, and the letters give it away without the meaning helping at all.

Four of these words contain a double letter, the same letter written twice in a row. Which word does not?

This one is pure spelling and no meaning whatsoever. Run a finger along each word and stop the instant two identical letters touch, then find the word that never makes you stop.

Four of these words begin and end with the same letter. Which word does not?

Only the two ends of each word matter, so put your hand over everything in between. Four of them close the way they opened and one walks off in a different direction.

In four of these words every letter comes later in the alphabet than the letter before it. Which word breaks the run?

Say the alphabet under your breath as you read each word across. In four of them you never once have to go back a step, and in the fifth you trip almost immediately.

Four of these words hide a number word inside them, spelled straight through. Which word does not?

Nothing here is written in digits. What you are looking for is spelled out in letters and buried inside a longer word, usually straddling two syllables so the eye slides past it.

Climb the ladder changing exactly one letter each rung. The missing rung is a small folding bed.

The shortest ladder on the page and the right one to start with. Exactly one letter of the word above may move, and whatever you write has to work with the rung below it as well.

One letter changes each rung. The missing rung is the stiff folded paper you post at Christmas.

Two rungs are already in place above the gap and one below it, which pins the missing word tightly. Compare the rung above with the rung underneath and see which single letter is still wrong.

One letter changes each rung. The missing rung lives in the soil and blackbirds pull it out of the lawn.

Two different words obey the letter rule here, so the sentence above is doing real work rather than decorating. Read it once more before you write anything into the gap.

One letter changes each rung. The missing rung is what you do with your ears.

Every rung keeps its first three letters, so the whole puzzle happens in the final position. Three perfectly ordinary words fit the pattern and only the clue tells them apart.

One letter changes each rung. The missing rung is the black rock that people once burned to heat a house.

The first step changes the opening letter, then the ladder turns and starts working on the end of the word instead. Watch where the change moves to and the gap fills itself.

One letter changes each rung. The missing rung means to take somebody on for a job.

The hardest ladder here, because the gap sits second and the two words fencing it in change in different places. Work it from the bottom upwards if the top refuses to give.

These are the first letters of the days of the week, running from Monday to Saturday. Which day comes next?

Six tiles and then a gap. Read the letters aloud as initials rather than as a word, and the list they belong to turns out to be one you use every single week.

These are the first letters of the months, starting at January. Which month comes next?

Five initials in an order nobody ever shuffles. The two Ms are not a misprint, and they are the fastest way to work out exactly where in the list you are standing.

These are the first letters of the counting numbers, starting at one. Which number comes next?

The repeated letters are the clue and not the obstacle. None of these tiles is a word: each one is the first letter of something you say out loud while counting.

These are the first letters of the colours of the rainbow, in the order they appear. Which colour comes next?

Five initials that always turn up in the same order because physics puts them there. If you were taught a made up name at school for remembering them, this falls out in a second.

These are the first letters of the planets, counting outwards from the sun. Which planet comes next?

Two of these initials repeat, which narrows the possible lists very sharply. Start from something extremely hot and work your way outwards, and the order writes itself.

Every jump along the alphabet is one place longer than the jump before it. Which letter comes next?

The letters mean nothing on their own here. Number them by their place in the alphabet, write the gaps between those numbers in a line, and the pattern inside the gaps is the whole puzzle.

A fruit is hiding in this sentence, spelled straight across the gap between two words. Which fruit?

Read the line again with the spaces taken out. What you want is lying across a join between two perfectly ordinary words, and what the sentence means will not help you one bit.

An animal is hiding inside this sentence, spelled straight through. Which animal?

This one hides inside a single word instead of across a join, so read each word slowly on its own. The sentence is about the sea and the thing you are hunting is not.

A country is hiding in this sentence, spelled straight across a gap. Which country?

Two short words standing next to each other do all the work. Say the line quickly out loud and listen for a name that has nothing to do with hats or with stars.

A part of the body is hiding in this sentence, spelled straight across a gap. Which part?

Four letters, and they straddle the join between two very short words near the start. Nothing above the waist will do, which should narrow it to almost nothing.

A musical instrument is hiding in this sentence, spelled straight across a gap. Which instrument?

The join you want is the one where a short word meets a long one. What you are looking for is played by hitting it rather than by blowing down it or pulling a bow across it.

A bird is hiding in this sentence, spelled straight across a gap. Which bird?

The line is deliberately odd so that the join still sounds natural when you say it. Four letters, half of them on one side of a space and half on the other.

Read this word from the last letter to the first. The word you get means the pans you cook in.

Four letters, and reading them from the back gives another completely everyday word. The reflection under the dotted line is there for the look of it: the work happens in your head.

Read this word backwards. The word you get means the small hard lumps on a storybook witch's nose.

You drink through the word printed on the card. Turn it round and you get something nobody would ever want on the end of their nose.

Read this word backwards. The word you get is the opposite of an angel.

A perfectly ordinary past tense on the card, and a rather less ordinary character once you have read it from the back. Five letters both ways round.

Read this word backwards. The word you get is what a cat has four of.

Short enough to reverse in your head without writing anything down. The word on the card is what children do with football stickers in the playground.

Read this word backwards. The word you get is what you hope for after handing in a lost wallet.

Six letters is where this gets awkward, because you have to hold the whole thing in your head while you read it from the back. The card shows a piece of furniture that slides.

Read this word backwards. The word you get is how most people feel the night before an exam.

The longest reversal on the page and easily the most famous. Eight letters, a double S in the middle whichever way you read it, and two meanings that are almost opposites.