A rebus puzzle says a phrase without saying it: the position, size, direction, and repetition of words on the page carry the meaning. MAN written above BOARD isn't "man board". It's man overboard. Once your brain flips into that mode, rebuses become weirdly addictive, which is why they've survived everything from 18th-century letter-writing games to the puzzle segment on Concentration.
Below are 45 rebus puzzles with answers, sorted from warm-up to genuinely evil. Every answer comes with a one-line explanation, because a rebus you don't understand after seeing the answer is just an annoyance, and the explanations are what teach you to solve the next one. We tested the ordering on two ten-year-olds and a grandparent over a rainy weekend; where they disagreed with our difficulty ratings, the kids won.
Each answer is hidden until you click it. No peeking by accident.
How to solve a rebus puzzle: the six decoder rules
Nearly every rebus is built from six tricks. Learn these and you can decode almost anything:
| Rule | What to look for | Example | Answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Position | Word above/below/inside another | STAND over I | I understand |
| Direction | Backwards or vertical text | ECNALG | Backward glance |
| Repetition | The same word 2–7 times | CYCLE CYCLE CYCLE | Tricycle |
| Size | Unusually big or small text | a giant DEAL | Big deal |
| Missing/extra parts | Letters absent or misplaced | SYMPHON | Unfinished symphony |
| Sound-alikes | Letters/numbers read aloud | EZ | Easy |
Say the layout out loud, literally: "I is under stand… I under stand… oh." Speaking the spatial relationship is the single best solving technique we know.
Easy rebus puzzles (1–15)
Warm-ups. If you solve 12 of 15, skip ahead to medium.
1.
STAND
I
Reveal answer
I understand — the I is under "STAND".2.
MAN
BOARD
Reveal answer
Man overboard — MAN is over "BOARD".3.
HEAD
HEELS
Reveal answer
Head over heels — HEAD sits over "HEELS".4.
DEATH LIFE
Reveal answer
Life after death — LIFE comes after "DEATH".5.
WEAR
LONG
Reveal answer
Long underwear — LONG is under "WEAR".6.
CYCLE CYCLE CYCLE
Reveal answer
Tricycle — three "cycles".7.
ECNALG
Reveal answer
Backward glance — "glance" written backwards.8.
T
O
W
N
Reveal answer
Downtown — the word "town" running downward.9.
BAN ANA
Reveal answer
Banana split — the word "banana" split in two.10.
EGGS
EASY
Reveal answer
Eggs over easy — EGGS is over "EASY".11.
MIND
MATTER
Reveal answer
Mind over matter — MIND over "MATTER".12.
SGEG
Reveal answer
Scrambled eggs — the letters of "eggs", scrambled.13.
NOON GOOD
Reveal answer
Good afternoon — GOOD appears after "NOON".14.
WEATHER
FEELING
Reveal answer
Feeling under the weather — FEELING is under "WEATHER".15.
COVER
AGENT
Reveal answer
Undercover agent — AGENT is under "COVER".Medium rebus puzzles (16–33)
The tricks start combining: position plus repetition, insertions, sound-alikes.
16.
GET IT GET IT
GET IT GET IT
Reveal answer
Forget it — four "get it"s: "four-get it".17.
GROUND
FEET FEET FEET FEET FEET FEET
Reveal answer
Six feet underground — six "feet" under "GROUND".18.
ARREST
YOU'RE
Reveal answer
You're under arrest — YOU'RE is under "ARREST".19.
HISTORY HISTORY HISTORY
Reveal answer
History repeats itself.20.
PPOD
Reveal answer
Two peas in a pod — two Ps inside "pod".21.
DICE DICE
Reveal answer
Paradise — a pair of dice.22.
LE
VEL
Reveal answer
Split level — the word "level" split across two lines.23.
CHIMADENA
Reveal answer
Made in China — "MADE" inside "CHINA".24.
MOMANON
Reveal answer
Man in the moon — "MAN" inside "MOON".25.
PAWALKRK
Reveal answer
A walk in the park — "WALK" inside "PARK".26.
THODEEPUGHT
Reveal answer
Deep in thought — "DEEP" inside "THOUGHT".27.
CCCCCCC
Reveal answer
The seven seas — seven letter Cs.28.
NAFISH NAFISH
Reveal answer
Tuna fish — two "NA" fish.29.
BELT
HITTING
Reveal answer
Hitting below the belt — HITTING is below "BELT".30.
NIGHT FLY
Reveal answer
Fly by night — FLY sits by "NIGHT".31.
JOB IN JOB
Reveal answer
In between jobs — "IN" between two "JOB"s.32.
WHEATHER
Reveal answer
A bad spell of weather — "weather" spelled badly.33.
FUNNY FUNNY
WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS
Reveal answer
Too funny for words — two "funny"s over four "words".Hard rebus puzzles (34–45)
These stumped at least one adult in our test group. Read layouts aloud, check for hidden numbers, and remember that punctuation is never decoration.
34.
M1Y L1I1F1E
Reveal answer
For once in my life — four number 1s ("onces") inside "my life".35.
GRA12"VE
Reveal answer
One foot in the grave — 12 inches (one foot) inside "grave".36.
SYMPHON
Reveal answer
Unfinished symphony — the word stops one letter early.37.
HIMSELF HE'S
Reveal answer
He's beside himself — HE'S is beside "HIMSELF".38.
WORL
Reveal answer
World without end — "world" without its end.39.
ME QUIT
Reveal answer
Quit following me — QUIT is following "ME".40.
iii iii
OO
Reveal answer
Circles under the eyes — the letter Os (circles) sit under six i's ("eyes").41.
ROADS
R
O
A
D
S
Reveal answer
Crossroads — two "roads" crossing.42.
T RN
Reveal answer
No U-turn — the word "turn" with no U.43.
KNEE
LIGHT
Reveal answer
Neon light — "knee-on" light. Sound-alikes are the hardest rule to spot.44.
LOOK ULEAP
Reveal answer
Look before you leap — LOOK comes before "U leap".45.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTVWXYZ
Reveal answer
Missing you — the alphabet with no U. Everyone stares at this one hunting for a trick before anyone thinks to recite the letters. It stumped our entire weekend test group, including the adult who'd been fastest on 34–44.How to make your own rebus puzzles
Making rebuses is half the fun, and it's the best party-game version: everyone writes two, drops them in a bowl, and the group solves them together. The recipe we use:
- Start from the phrase, not the picture. Idioms with spatial words are gold: over, under, in, between, before, after, without, backwards. "Once in a blue moon" practically draws itself.
- Apply exactly one or two decoder rules. One rule = easy, two rules = hard, three rules = nobody solves it and you feel bad.
- Test the wrong readings. Show a draft to one person. If they land confidently on a different valid answer, rebuild it — a rebus should be hard to see and obvious in hindsight, never ambiguous. (Our first draft of
EGGS / EASYkept getting read as "easy under eggs"; flipping which word carries the idiom fixed it.) - Handwrite or type it big. Layout is the puzzle, so make position and size differences unmistakable.
If your group prefers their word puzzles pre-made, you can generate custom word searches and crosswords with our puzzle maker using the same party theme, or grab something from the printable puzzles collection. A rebus round plus a themed word search is our go-to structure for family game nights, and our guide to building a themed word search for a party walks through the setup.
Where rebuses came from (the 30-second version)
Rebus writing is genuinely old. The name comes from Latin non verbis, sed rebus, "not by words but by things." Heraldic rebuses encoded family names in coat-of-arms imagery in the Middle Ages, and by the 1700s "hieroglyphic epistles" (letters written partly in pictures) were a fashionable game. Lewis Carroll wrote them to children he knew. The NIH's environmental-health kids site keeps a small interactive rebus collection alive today, which says something about their staying power as thinking exercises.
Keep solving
If the hard tier felt good, your next stop is riddles for adults: same "obvious in hindsight" pleasure, no layout required. Solving with kids? Our riddles for kids list is sorted by age, and rebuses 1–15 above pair well with the younger bands. And when you want a puzzle that lasts longer than one aha, there's always a free sudoku or hangman round waiting.