Enigmus Riddle Exam Part 2
Thomas Allen Smith, Jr. 
© Copyright 2008.

Directions: This test consists of 20 riddles which are designed to test your verbal intelligence. You may use reference materials and there is no time limit. However, you may not discuss the questions with others. When you are finished finding solutions you may grade your answers here. Good luck

1) I am a word which means banal and insipid. Take away my first letter and I am the angular distance north or south of the equator. What am I? 

2) I describe an area of year-round warm temperatures, allowing for constant plant growth. Take away my second letter and I describe the subject of the discussion we're having. Lose the last two letters of that word and I am that subject. What am I? 

3) I am a word which means 'to move stealthily or in a provocative manner'. Change my fourth letter and I become slippery. Change my second letter and I become offensive to the olfactory. What am I? 

4) I am used in many recipes high in carbohydrates. Change my first letter and I'm a sudden expulsion of air from the lungs. Change it again and I become coarse. Change it once more and I'm strong and firm. What am I? 

5) I am a word that depicts women fainting in the presence of handsome (or perhaps extremely charming) men. Remove my second letter and I am the near future. Remove the second letter from this new word and I am the progeny with an XY in my 23rd. What am I? 

6) I am a word which means 'to treat as a thing of great importance'. Take away my last three letters and I become a quadrapedal king! What am I? 

7) I am a word that soothes into a state of relaxation. However, change my first letter around and I can become a host of other words! A bird, a bovine, something boring, something complete, something that amounts to nothing, an outer shell.....just ponder it over but don't strain your mental muscles! What am I? 

8) I am a deerlike mammal found in Africa. You can split my name into two separate words, the first of which is a highly social insect and the second which means "to run away discretely with the intention of marriage". What am I?

9) I am a person of insignificant standing. I'm also a word which means "to remove from something by hard rubbing while washing." Remove my first two letters and I become a new word which can be found in this sentence. What am I? 

10) I am the act of giving something up. My first three letters comprise a word which is a homonym for the number of Noble Truths. My last two letters form a common pronoun. What am I? 

11) I am a four-legged domesticated mammal. Take what is used from me, remove the first letter of that word and replace it with two others and you get something that most people do when you change my second letter to form a new word. This new word takes up approximately one third of your life. What am I? 

12) I am a word which means conservative with one's money. Change my second letter and fifth letters and I become a type of brass horn. What am I?

13) I am the thing which I'm using to describe myself. If you change my first letter I become 
trifling, or a hoax. Change it again and I become a stringed instrument.  What am I? 

14) I can be found on a Cheshire Cat, The Joker or most covers of Mad Magazine. I am an anagram for the central artifact in Tolkein's most popular work. What am I? 

15) I am the act of traveling from place to place, offering wares to anyone who might be interested. Change my first letter and I'm interfering in affairs that are not my business (a homonym for an award given as recognition of an accomplishment). What am I? 

16) I am something lent for temporary use and I am also the act of lending. Change my first letter and I am a paradoxical riddle used to teach Zen Buddhists to rise above reason and use their intuition. What am I? 

17) I am a male bee. I am also the act of making a persistent, monotonous buzzing or murmuring. Remove my second letter and I'm finished. What am I? 

18) I am a word the describes having moved through the air. Change my first name and I become someone who is paid to make you laugh. Change the second letter instead and I become an action which requires 37 muscles (and not something me, with that same altered first letter, would do). What am I? 

19) I am a word which means "having a pleasant or sweet smell". Change my second letter and I become blatantly offensive. Remove my second letter and my first and I become a transient who most likely does not have a pleasant or sweet smell. What am I? 

20) I have am a word that describes an inward bevel, usually a sign of damage. Flip my first letter around (like a mirror image) and I become a word which describes the original word. Change my first letter yet again and I might do this to express frustration. What am I? 

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