This word riddle asks: What 6-letter word becomes 12 when you remove one letter? The answer depends on thinking about what a word means after one letter disappears.
The answer is: DOZENS.
The word DOZENS has six letters. Remove the final letter S, and you are left with DOZEN.
A dozen means exactly 12.
The clever part is that the riddle does not ask you to form the digits 1 and 2. Instead, it asks for a word whose meaning becomes twelve after one letter is removed.
Once you think about number words and quantities rather than just spelling, the solution becomes much easier. It is a simple but effective example of wordplay hiding inside an ordinary-looking question.
