This famous word riddle has been sparking some great conversations online! It is actually one of the oldest riddles in history, famously known as the Riddle of the Sphinx, and it is a wonderful test of your creative thinking.
The image asks: “What has 4 legs in the morning, 2 at noon, and 3 at night?”
What makes this puzzle so clever is that it uses the times of a single day as a beautiful metaphor for the stages of life. “Morning” represents the very beginning of life, “noon” represents the middle, and “night” represents our twilight years.
When we are babies in the “morning” of our lives, we crawl around on all four limbs. When we grow into adults at “noon,” we walk upright on two legs. Finally, as we reach our golden years in the “night” of our lives, we often rely on a walking stick or cane, giving us three legs!
Answer: A human (or a person).
