Finding Rhymes in Categories

Find rhymes for each set of words so the first is a category and the rest are items in the category.

For example, LOYALTY: spring, clean, rinse → ROYALTY: king, queen, prince

1. LOIN: mortar, climb, pickle
2. SQUISH: famine, search, doubt
3. GILDING: radium, Bose, hassle
4. THYME: surgery, girder, scrutiny

1. COIN: quarter, dime, nickel
2. FISH: salmon, perch, trout
3. BUILDING: stadium, mosque, castle
4. CRIME: perjury, murder, mutiny

Posted in Brain Teasers

Insect Shipments

There once was a strange man who loved wordplay, he had a very important and successful business that would take insect shipments from all across the world and distribute them to zoos across the US.

What was the name of his company?

ImportANT

Posted in Riddles

NDOLA

What does “NDOLA, PAMODZI” mean?

Thanks to the comments, it doesn’t mean anything per se, but it’s a location in Zambia. If that’s all it is, it’s not really a brain teaser, but since we’ve already worked on it, I’m marking it as solved leaving it up for posterity.

Below are former attempts to solve it.

I have yet to figure this one out. NDOLA could mean And lo, or An old, among other things. Pamodzi on the other hand didn’t have any particularly meaningful anagrams. Both words together had over 1,000 anagrams.

I haven’t come up with any other possible meanings.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Longest Word in English

What is the longest word in the English dictionary?

Smiles because there is a mile between the two s’s.

Posted in Brain Teasers
Tagged with

Six Glasses In a Row

There are six glasses in a row. The first three are full of water, and the next three are empty. By moving only one glass how can you make them alternate between full and empty?

Pour the water from the 2nd glass into the 5th glass.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Six Nine Twenty-Seven

What is N?

6, 9, 27, 54, N, 2241

675.

The next number in the sequence is n squared minus m or f(n,m) = n2 – m
f(6,9) = 62 – 9 = 27
f(9,27) = 92 – 27 = 54
f(27,54) = 272 – 54 = 675
f(54,675) = 542 – 675 = 2241

Posted in Brain Teasers
Tagged with

Four Colored Balls in Gym Class

Four different-colored balls are being used in a gym class activity – blue, red, yellow and orange. Each student must hold two different-colored balls, but no two students can have the same two colors (for example, only one student can hold the blue and red ball).

How many students can play the game?

Six. If you prefer math, you can calculate it as 4 combination 2

4! / (2!)^2
24 / 4 = 6

Or you can work it out manually:

1. Blue Red
2. Blue Yellow
3. Blue Orange
4. Red Yellow
5. Red Orange
6. Yellow Orange

Posted in Brain Teasers

Water Rebus

What does this represent?

 WATER
-------
 SWIM

Swim underwater.

Posted in Brain Teasers
Tagged with

Catches a Bullet With His Bare Hands

Alan fires a bullet from his hand gun and his friend Wade catches the bullet with his bare hands. The gun shoots actual, deadly bullets. The bullet does not touch anything but air after it leaves the gun and until it reaches Wade’s hand. Wade is uninjured. How does he do it?

Alan fires his bullet from a .25 ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol), which will reach a maximum height of 2,287 feet. He shoots directly upward while standing at the base of Burj Khalifa, a 2,722 foot tall building.

Wade is a window cleaner at that building, waiting at 2,287 feet. When the bullet reaches that height and is about to go back down again, he reaches out with his bare hands and catches it.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Destroyer Of The Unbreakable

Destroyer of the unbreakable,
More of me is hidden than seen.

What am I?

An iceberg.

Posted in Riddles