I am a five-letter word and am feared by most but experienced by all. If you remove my first and last letters I bring life. If you add an ‘r’ between the third and fourth letters I am almost nothing and if you remove the first letter from this new word, I am your home.
Death (eat, dearth, earth). No one can escape death, but many fear it. Removing the first and last letters leaves eat, and we must eat to stay alive. Adding the ‘r’ turns death into dearth, which is scarcity and removing the first letter of dearth leaves earth, where you live, assuming this riddle hasn’t reached extraterrestrials.
On Arbor Day the fourth grade class began planting trees. They finished planting five trees before the fifth grade class arrived. But they accidentally planted them on the fifth grade side of the street.
The fourth-graders crossed the street to start over, and the fifth-graders planted the remaining trees. They finished first and felt bad for the fourth-graders, so they crossed the street and planted five trees. They planted another five trees at which point all of the trees had been planted.
By how many trees were the fifth-graders ahead of the fourth-graders?
There are many English words that you can add an “s” to make it plural. But far fewer words become singular when you add an “s”. What are two examples of these much rarer words?
Two boys weighing 50 pounds each and their older brother weighing 100 pounds wish to cross a river. Their boat will only hold 100 pounds. How can they all cross the river in the boat?
Wind (or anything blown by the wind). It moves all over, reaches the rich and the poor equally and no one knows exactly which way the next gust of wind will blow. You can’t see the wind, but you can see what it blows, like leaves or dust.