25 Printable Brain Teasers You Can Print for Free
Updated: Dec. 14, 2023
How many of these brain busters can you solve?
Give your brain a workout with these free printable brain teasers
Ready to get the gears in your head turning? If so, you’re in the right place. Some people like to utilize printable crossword puzzles, printable word searches, and printable sudoku puzzles to test their smarts, but printable brain teasers can do the trick, too. These brain teasers vary in difficulty and form—some require wordplay, whereas others require math skills. There’s a brain teaser here for everyone, from brain teaser beginners to brain-busting pros. Simply click the buttons below to download these printable brain teasers and put your smarts to the test (no peeking at the answers!) And if you love brain games, make sure you see what Wordle is all about.
Brain teaser #1: Play the slots
Below the wheels of the slot machine, you see a wheel laid out flat. Which symbol (1-6) should replace the question mark?
Answer: Symbol 4. Join the beginning and the end of the strip to see the rest. Don’t forget to bookmark these holiday word searches you can print for free!
Brain teaser #2: Hourglass
Starting in the middle, each word in the top half has the letters of the word below it, plus a new letter, and each word in the bottom half has the letters of the word above it, plus a new letter.
(1) small army unit
(2) tease
(3) made from dough
(4) lyric poet
(5) short for Abraham
(6) deep yellow color
(7) sculpture rock
(8) pedestrian
Answers:Â
(1) brigade
(2) badger
(3) bread
(4) bard
(5) Bram
(6) amber
(7) marble
(8) rambler
Brain teaser #3: One letter less or more
The word on the right side contains the letters of the word on the left side plus or minus the letter in the middle. One letter is already in the right place.
Answer: Notepad
Brain teaser #4: Medication
Which combination of pills will the patient have to take next time?
Answer: The combination of pulls 1 and 4 because that finishes all possible two-pill combinations of the five available pills.
Brain teaser #5: Keeping score
Which digit should replace the question mark in the score?
Answer: 6. The difference in the scores forms the following sequence: -2, +4, -6, +8. Alternating per column you also see the following two series: 7-14-21-28 and 9-18-27-36. Got this one right? See if you can answer these rebus puzzles that are impossible to solve.
Brain teaser #6: Word Pyramid
Each word in the pyramid has the letters of the word above it, plus a new letter.
(1) exist
(2) place to sleep
(3) liability
(4) introduction
(5) broken
(6) slowest
(7) tripped
Answers:
(1) be
(2) bed
(3) debt
(4) debut
(5) busted
(6) dumbest
(7) stumbled
Brain teaser #7: Word ladders
Convert the word at the tops of the ladders to the word at the bottom, using all the rungs in between. On each rung, you must put a valid word that has the same letters as the word above it, apart from one letter change. There may be more than one way of achieving this.
Answers:
For laser ladder: laser, large, learn, later, table, beast, beams
For water ladder: water, waste, swear, laser, flare, false, falls
Brain teaser #8: Fencing
Which posts (1-6) should replace letters A, B, and C?
Answer: Posts 4, 3, and 5. A large and small post always alternate. The large posts alternate between black and white so B=3. The small posts follow the color pattern gray, black, and white combined with the shape pattern pointed and round.
Brain teaser #9: Clockwise
The answers to the clues from 1 to 12 are all seven-letter words that end with the letter G. When you have solved the puzzle correctly, working clockwise from 1, the 12 letters in the outer circle will spell an abrupt word.
(1) covering up
(2) current
(3) obtrusive and persistent
(4) way in
(5) young tree
(6) open wide
(7) enduring
(8) in want of
(9) moving at an easy pace
(10) illicit goods
(11) drooping loosely
(12) bringing to mind
Answers:
(1) masking
(2) ongoing
(3) nagging
(4) opening
(5) sapling
(6) yawning
(7) lasting
(8) lacking
(9) ambling
(10) bootleg
(11) lolling
(12) evoking
Outer circle word: monosyllable
Brain teaser #10: Corrections
Which two numbers should be erased in order to restore the logic of the series numbers?
Answer: 7 and 5. Each set in the series consists of one digit more and the combined total of these digits equals 9.
Brain teaser #11: Word wheel
How many words of three or more letters, each including the letter at the center of the wheel, can you make from this diagram? No plurals or conjugations. We’ve found 17, including one nine-letter word. Can you do better?
Answers: per, pie, pro, rip, pier, poor, prof, ripe, rope, prier, prior, proof, repro, roper, proffer, reproof, fireproof.
Brain teaser #12: In balance
Which weight (A-D) should replace the question mark so that the scale is in balance?
Answer: B.
A = B + C + D, C = B + D, A = 3D so 3D = 2B + 2D, 3D – 2D = 2B so D = 2B.
Brain teaser #13: Celebration
Which letter is made up of the wrong confetti?
Answer: W. The consonants are always composed of white, blue, red, and yellow confetti.
Brain teaser #14: Letterblocks
Move the letter blocks around so that words are formed on top and below that you can associate with winter. In some blocks, the letter from the top row has been switched with the letter from the bottom row.
Answers: chimney, snowman
Brain teaser #15: Safe code
To open the safe you have to replace the question mark with the correct figure. You can find this figure by determining the logical method behind the numbers shown. These methods can include calculation, inversion, repetition, chronological succession, or forming ascending and descending series.
Answer: 33
Brain teaser #16: Towering
A red tower is visible through an airplane window. With which tower (1-11) on the floor plan does the red tower correspond?
Answer: Tower 7
Brain teaser #17: Block anagram
Form the word that is described in the brackets with the letters above the grid. Extra letters are already in the right place.
Answer: Anticyclone
Brain teaser #18: Beady
Which color (1-6) should replace the bead with the question mark?
Answer: Color 5. The beads are split into groups of three. The color of the middle bead is a combination of the outer two colors.
Brain teaser #19: Monkey business
Some of the older kids have been monkeying about with the best kids’ book titles list in the library. Can you fix it?
Answers:
(1) Wonder
(2) After Eli
(3) The Third Wheel
(4) The Serpent’s ShadowÂ
(5) See You At Harry’s
Brain teaser #20: Surveillance!
Enter the maze, pass over all security cameras from behind (thereby disabling them), and then exit. You may not pass through a grid more than once, and may not enter a grid space in the line of a camera you have not disabled.
Brain teaser #21: Christmas lights
Which Christmas tree (1-6) is lit up incorrectly?
Answer: Christmas tree 2. On all the other Christmas trees the left and right sides are decorated with identically colored Christmas tree lights.
Brain teaser #22: Futoshiki
Fill in the 5 x 5 grid with the numbers from 1 to 5 once per row and column, while following the greater than/less than symbols shown. There is only one valid solution that can be reached through logic and clear thinking alone!
Brain teaser #23: Letter soup
Use up all the letters in the soup to fill in the spaces and find eight sailing terms.
Answers:Â anchor, yacht, compass, catamaran, water, regatta, boom, afterdeck
Brain teaser #24: Word parts
Place the left and right word parts with the middle letters to form six new words.
Answers: scrolling, cabriolet, radiation, dangerous, quarterly, knockdown
Brain teaser #25: Horoscope
Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every frame of six boxes contains six different symbols: health, work, money, happiness, family, and love. Look at the row or column that corresponds with your sign of the zodiac and find out which of the six symbols are important for your today. The symbols appear in increasing order of importance (1-6). It’s up to you to translate the meaning of each symbol to your specific situation.
More puzzles
If you enjoyed these printable brain teasers and want even more puzzles to challenge your brain, check out Mind Stretchers. Challenge your brain with sudoku, crosswords, word searches, logic puzzles, and more.
P.S.—don’t forget to browse more of our brain teasers to boost your brain power.
