A rebus hides a whole phrase in the way the letters are arranged: where a word sits, how big it is, how many times it turns up. There are thirty here, from ones a six year old will shout out to a few that hold up an adult. Type your answer to check it on the spot, or print the sheets and solve them with a pencil.
Two words, one stacked on the other, and the whole puzzle lives in that vertical relationship. You would shout the answer from the deck of a ship.
Answer: Man overboard
The same stacking trick as the shipboard one, but the pair is now a body part and the things you land on. The phrase describes falling for someone completely.
Answer: Head over heels
One letter beneath one word. Say the position out loud before you say the words and a whole sentence falls out.
Answer: I understand
A structure on top, a liquid below. The phrase is what you say when an old argument has stopped mattering.
Answer: Water under the bridge
Something nobody wants to hear from a police officer. The words underneath tell you exactly who it is happening to.
Answer: You are under arrest
A polite way of admitting you are a bit ill. The lower word is the one doing the feeling.
Answer: Feeling under the weather
Both words start with the same letter, so which one sits on top is the entire clue. It is what people say about willpower.
Answer: Mind over matter
Order this in an American diner and the cook knows precisely how long the pan stays on the heat.
Answer: Eggs over easy
Count the small words before you read them. The number matters just as much as where they sit.
Answer: Six feet underground
This one runs left to right instead of top to bottom. Which word comes second is the whole message, and the answer is a greeting.
Answer: Good afternoon
The lone letter in the middle stands in for a word that sounds the same. Read the gaps as the word before.
Answer: Look before you leap
The orange word is trapped and the two dark ones are doing the trapping. Say where it is and the proverb writes itself.
Answer: Caught between a rock and a hard place
A digit has been pushed into the middle of a very large number word. Say what is inside what.
Answer: One in a million
Turn almost any cheap gadget over and you will find these three words stamped on the bottom.
Answer: Made in China
Look up on a clear night and people have been claiming to see this face for centuries.
Answer: The man in the moon
Something very small buried in something very large. The phrase describes a hopeless search.
Answer: A needle in a haystack
Literally a body part with an ache stuffed into it. Figuratively, the colleague who will not stop talking.
Answer: A pain in the neck
Count them, then say the letter aloud instead of naming it. Old sailors claimed to have crossed them all.
Answer: The seven seas
The word has been flipped left for right. The answer is the drill command for turning on the spot.
Answer: About face
The same mirror as the drill command, a different verb. This one is what you do when you think about the past.
Answer: Looking back
The word runs from top to bottom and the arrow names that direction for you. The answer is one word, not two.
Answer: Downtown
The same vertical trick as the city centre one. This time the answer is worth six points.
Answer: Touchdown
There is only one word on the card, so the size it is printed at has to be the other half of the phrase.
Answer: Big deal
The exact opposite of the huge one. The answer is the kind of conversation you make in a lift.
Answer: Small talk
A red cross over a letter means that letter is forbidden. You have seen this exact instruction on a road sign.
Answer: No U turn
One letter is missing and the empty box is the point. Schubert famously left one of these behind.
Answer: Unfinished symphony
The word is doing exactly what the phrase describes. It means working out what somebody actually meant.
Answer: Reading between the lines
The square is empty and the word is nowhere near it. Every management seminar has said this to you.
Answer: Think outside the box
The opposite arrangement to the management seminar one, with a name instead of a verb. It springs out at you.
Answer: Jack in the box
The background is doing half the work here. The phrase means the warning signs were obvious all along.
Answer: The writing on the wall
Five sheets, six rebuses on each, sized for US Letter and A4. Every sheet has its own answer key as a separate PDF, so you can hand out the puzzles and keep the solutions. All free, no sign-up and no watermark.
A rebus is a picture puzzle made out of words. Instead of describing the answer, the arrangement spells it out: a word sitting on another means over or under, a word boxed inside another means in, a word crossed out means no, and a word printed backwards means back. Nothing is buried in a grid and there is nothing to search for, which is what makes a rebus its own puzzle rather than a variation on a word search. Once you see how the pieces are placed, the phrase reads itself out loud.
Both, and the page is ordered that way. The early ones are a single word sitting above another, which children work out quickly once they have seen one example solved. The later ones ask you to notice a colour, a missing letter or half a word that has been faded out, and those hold adults up for a while. Every rebus is marked easy, medium or hard, so you can pick by level instead of working straight down the page.
A rebus is a word puzzle but not a word grid, so it gets its own page. If you would rather hunt for letters, the word searches play on a board you drag across. If you prefer clues and crossings, the crossword puzzles play in the browser too. And the word search maker turns any list of your own words into a puzzle in about a minute.
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