This classic word riddle asks: What 5-letter word becomes “ONE” when you remove two letters? The clue sounds like you need to transform a number, but the answer is hidden in the spelling.
The answer is: STONE.
Remove the first two letters, S and T, from the word STONE. What remains is ONE.
The trick is that “becomes one” does not mean the word changes into the number 1 through a calculation. Instead, it literally leaves the letters O-N-E behind.
These short word puzzles are easy to overthink because the wording makes them sound more complicated than they are. Once you focus on the letters instead of the meaning of the word, the answer becomes obvious.
