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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Compound Word Puzzle 3

Compound words are words that are composed of two or more other words, like high + light = highlight.

Can you make compound words out of the following three words by adding the same 4-letter word either before or after each word?

  • CROSS
  • WORKS
  • WILD
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Finish My Wordle

These Wordle puzzles are nearly complete, you just need to finish them by figuring out the correct word. In each of these 5 puzzles, there should be just one or two valid answers remaining – find them!

Haven’t played Wordle before? You get 6 tries to guess the 5-letter English word, and for each guess you are shown whether each letter is in the right place in the word (green), in the word but in the wrong place (yellow), or not in the word at all (gray).

Wordle 1
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Vocabulary Puzzle

Quick vocabulary puzzle – given the middle four letters of each word, figure out these 8-letter words:

  1. _ _ TABA _ _
  2. _ _ CUME _ _
  3. _ _ NERO _ _
  4. _ _ IDEN _ _
  5. _ _ NETA _ _
  6. _ _ EASA _ _
  7. _ _ ENAR _ _
  8. _ _ WERF _ _
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Something in Common

These words all have an unusual property in common, what is it?

  • Adopt
  • Glory
  • Knot
  • Empty
  • Hint
  • Begin
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Middle Four Letters

The middle four letters of these 8-letter words are shown. Can you figure out the full 8-letter words? There may be multiple suitable answers for some of the words.

  1. _ _ EQUA _ _
  2. _ _ DUST _ _
  3. _ _ CUBA _ _
  4. _ _ COLA _ _
  5. _ _ DIRE _ _
  6. _ _ MESA _ _
  7. _ _ TACO _ _
  8. _ _ OPIC _ _
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Compound Word Puzzle 2

Compound words are words that are composed of two or more other words, like high + light = highlight.

Can you make compound words out of the following three words by adding the same 4-letter word to each of them?

  • SHINE
  • HONEY
  • WALK
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Compound Word Puzzle 1

Compound words are words that are composed of two or more other words, like high + light = highlight.

Can you make compound words out of the following three words by adding the same 4-letter word to each of them?

  • WOOD
  • FALL
  • SURF
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Tricky, Tricky

Can you figure out the number I am thinking of?

Some cryptic clues:

  • Call it sin, and mess it up (9)
  • Between θ and κ (4)
  • Engage emotionally (5)
  • Half a byte (6)
  • Mottle (5)
  • Never mix meds & gin (7)
  • – (4)

If you have all the answers right, that’s only about 33% percent of the solution: you need to justify them too.

Some clues were left over, so here’s a second set:

  • Sing about the matter (10)
  • Frog’s pole (3)
  • Heroin or slap (5)
  • 0 or 1 (1,3)
  • A toy asking a question on an online forum (4+2 = 6)

An ingenious and very difficult puzzle by Bass on Puzzling StackExchange (spoiler warning: contains the solution)

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Unique Number of Letters

Out of all whole numbers between one and five thousand, there is only one number that has a unique number of letters when you spell it out. What number is it?

Include spaces and dashes. For example, “twenty-four” and “two hundred” both have 11 letters.

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Hidden Word

What hidden word can be found among these pairs of words?

  • Staple, paste
  • Phasor, sharp
  • Uneven, venue
  • Secret, crest
  • Litter, title
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Phonetic Alphabet

When someone asks Casey how to spell her name, she helpfully offers:

  • C as in chaos
  • A as in armor
  • S as in scene
  • E as in empire
  • Y as in ?

Which is Casey most likely to use as a spelling aid for Y: yield, yearn, yacht, yellow, youth, or yank?

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Proverb Missing Vowels

This fairly common proverb is missing its vowels. What is the original proverb?

PPRNCS CN B DCPTV

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Word to Complete Them All

I _ _ _ E
W _ _ _ H
C A _ _ _
C _ _ _ E R
_ _ _ I O

Which 3-letter word can be inserted into all four lines above to form complete words?

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Almost Special Words

What is a special property or feature that all of the following words have in common?

banana, uneven, grammar, voodoo, assess, potato, revive, dresser

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

One Acts Kind at the Spa

Which English word can be added to either the beginning or end of each of the following words, in order to create four valid English words?

  • ONE
  • ACT
  • KIND
  • SPA
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Odd One Out

Which is the odd one out?

  • catwoman
  • deus ex machina
  • parishioner
  • pyromania
  • scuba
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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Slowing and Shrinking

Remove one letter from the word “SLOWING” to make another valid English word. Repeat this step until you are left with just one letter, ensuring every step results in an English word. What words did you make in the process?

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Secret Translation

The CIA intercepted some messages from a criminal organization, some in English and some in an unknown foreign language or code. As a CIA analyst and translator, you have figured out the following sentences and their English translations, but you do not yet know which sentence matches which translation:

  • Casara ashter osar
  • Intara amar
  • Intara orter osar
  • Alatara inter osar
  • Ortara amar
  • Alatara orter osar
  • I see a spy
  • I run
  • You see me
  • You see a spy
  • A suspicious man sees an enemy
  • You run

You have the opportunity to send a message in order to provoke a reaction from the criminal organization. Can you figure out and match up the translations above, and then send a message saying “a suspicious man runs” in this foreign language?

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Complete the Words

P _ _ _ N T
D E _ _ _ ST
S T _ _ _
C _ _ _ E R

Which 3-letter word can be inserted into all four lines above to form complete words?

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Brain Teasers and Puzzles

Cryptic Pattern Puzzle

Replace the ?’s in each of these to complete the puzzle:

Part 1

“Asia” is H
“Cuffs” is S
“Ender” is I
“Redness” is F
“Fuchsia” is ?

Part 2

“Using” is E
“Desist” is I
“Visits” is E
“Design” is ?

Part 3

“Gross” is W or R
“Assign” is S
“Amassing” is E
“Design” is S
“Amassing” is S
“Arrows” is ? or ?

Part 4

“Pro-tem” and “row” are H
“Ties” is K
“Cohesion” is A
“Casino” is E
“Hocks” is either a word, name, ? or ?

Part 5

“Edna” is I
“Slang” is X
“Siege” is E
“Basin” is X
“Sin” is X
“Sin” is A
“Besiege” is X
“Signals” is ? and ?


Source: Matt Malone on Puzzling StackExchange (spoiler warning: contains the solution)