1
Easy
Answer: Once upon a time
ONCE sits upon TIME, and saying the position gives you the whole phrase: once upon a time, the opening line of every fairy tale ever told.
Rebus puzzles with answers
Every rebus on this page comes with its answer printed right on the card, plus one line on how the picture spells the phrase, so you can learn the tricks instead of staring. All thirty are new: none of them appears on our main rebus page. Hide the answers with one tap if you would rather solve first, or print the sheets and keep the answer keys to yourself.
2
Easy
Answer: Sleep on it
SLEEP is literally on IT. Read the arrangement out loud and you get the advice people give before any big decision: sleep on it.
3
Easy
Answer: Wish upon a star
WISH placed upon STAR spells wish upon a star. The stacking does the work of the word upon, exactly as the song has it.
4
Easy
Answer: Right under your nose
RIGHT is printed under NOSE, so the picture says right under your nose: where something obvious hides while you search everywhere else.
5
Easy
Answer: Upside down
The word DOWN has been turned through a half circle, so DOWN is itself upside down. The card shows the phrase happening to its own word.
6
Easy
Answer: No way
A red cross through a word negates it, and a negated WAY reads as no way, the flat refusal. The strike mark IS the word no.
7
Easy
Answer: Think big
Only one word appears, printed as large as the card allows, so the size supplies the missing half: think big, the motto of every startup poster.
8
Easy
Answer: Green with envy
The ink colour is the clue. ENVY printed in green gives green with envy, because English has coloured jealousy that way for centuries.
9
Easy
Answer: Cheer up
CHEER plus an arrow pointing up combine into cheer up. The arrow simply pronounces its own direction and the phrase assembles itself.
10
Easy
Answer: Head in the clouds
HEAD is floating inside a drawn cloud, so the picture reads head in the clouds: the state of the daydreamer who has stopped listening.
11
Easy
Answer: Bullseye
EYE sits dead centre of an archery target, and the centre of a target is the bull, so the two together spell bullseye: a perfect hit.
12
Medium
Answer: Double trouble
TROUBLE appears twice, and two of anything is double. Read the count before the word and you get double trouble.
13
Medium
Answer: Tea for two
Say each character by its name: T sounds like tea, 4 like for, 2 like two. Strung together they play the old song title tea for two.
14
Medium
Answer: Forgive and forget
The digit 4 stands in for the sound FOR in both words, so 4GIVE 4GET reads as forgive and forget: the advice for ending a grudge.
15
Medium
Answer: Too good to be true
Each digit and lone letter is read by its sound: 2 is too and to, B is be. The line decodes to too good to be true, the warning about bargains.
16
Medium
Answer: Banana split
The word BANANA has been pulled apart in the middle. A banana that has been split is a banana split, the ice cream sundae.
17
Medium
Answer: Half an hour
Only half of HOUR is printed at full strength, so the card shows half an hour. The faded part still has to be legible or there is nothing to halve.
18
Medium
Answer: History repeats itself
HISTORY appears, then appears again: the word is repeating itself before your eyes, which is precisely what the proverb history repeats itself claims.
19
Medium
Answer: Ups and downs
UPS is written climbing and DOWNS is written falling, so each word acts out its own direction. Together they give lifes ups and downs.
20
Medium
Answer: Back to back
One BACK is mirrored so the two words stand back against back, the way duellists stand. The arrangement itself is the phrase back to back.
21
Medium
Answer: On cloud nine
A 9 rides inside a drawn cloud: cloud plus nine can only assemble into on cloud nine, the idiom for perfect happiness.
22
Medium
Answer: Tunnel vision
VISION is printed in the lit mouth at the end of a tunnel, so the drawing reads tunnel vision: seeing one thing and nothing around it.
23
Medium
Answer: Fan mail
An envelope means mail, and this one has FAN written on it. FAN on the mail gives fan mail, the letters celebrities answer late.
24
Medium
Answer: A grey area
AREA is printed in grey instead of black, and a grey AREA is a grey area: the zone where the rules stop being clear.
25
Hard
Answer: A square meal
MEAL is served inside a drawn square, and a MEAL in a square is a square meal: the proper sit-down kind, not a snack at the desk.
26
Hard
Answer: Back to square one
Read the pieces in order: BACK, the digit 2 as to, then a 1 boxed in a square. That chain rebuilds back to square one, where failed plans restart.
27
Hard
Answer: Just between us
The letters U and S flank the word JUST, so JUST is between U and S, and between U and S spells between us. The whole card whispers just between us.
28
Hard
Answer: Two peas in a pod
Two copies of the letter P sit inside POD, and the letter P is pronounced pea. Two Ps in a POD read as two peas in a pod: an inseparable pair.
29
Hard
Answer: The calm before the storm
CALM comes first on the line and STORM comes after, so CALM stands before the storm. Reading the order gives the calm before the storm.
30
Hard
Answer: A big fish in a small pond
FISH is printed larger than the word POND that contains it: a big FISH inside a small POND, which is exactly the idiom a big fish in a small pond.
The answer key at a glance
The same thirty answers in order, for checking a printed sheet quickly. The numbers match the cards above and the printable sheets below.
- Once upon a time
- Sleep on it
- Wish upon a star
- Right under your nose
- Upside down
- No way
- Think big
- Green with envy
- Cheer up
- Head in the clouds
- Bullseye
- Double trouble
- Tea for two
- Forgive and forget
- Too good to be true
- Banana split
- Half an hour
- History repeats itself
- Ups and downs
- Back to back
- On cloud nine
- Tunnel vision
- Fan mail
- A grey area
- A square meal
- Back to square one
- Just between us
- Two peas in a pod
- The calm before the storm
- A big fish in a small pond
Print these rebus puzzles with their answer keys
Five new sheets, six puzzles on each, sized for US Letter and A4, and none of them overlaps the sheets on the main rebus page. Every sheet has its own separate answer key PDF, so you can hand out the puzzles and keep the solutions. All free, no sign-up and no watermark.
How do rebus puzzles with answers work?
A rebus encodes a phrase in how its words are drawn: position, size, colour, repetition or direction. The answer is the everyday phrase that reading those clues out loud produces. On this page every answer is printed with its puzzle, together with one line explaining which visual trick builds the phrase.
More rebus puzzles and word games
None of the thirty puzzles above appears on our main rebus page, so when you finish here there are thirty more waiting, with typed answer checking instead of printed solutions. The word searches and crosswords play in the browser too, and the maker turns any list of your own words into a puzzle.
Play 30 more rebus puzzles online All word searches Free printable crossword puzzles