Home / Riddles / Logic riddles / The Butcher’s Assistant Riddle: What Does He Weigh?
Logic riddles
A butcher’s assistant is 5 feet 10 inches tall and wears size 13 shoes. What does he weigh?
A trick question stuffed with numbers that do not matter. The height and shoe size are there to make you estimate, when the answer is in the job title.
A butcher’s assistant is 5 feet 10 inches tall and wears size 13 shoes. What does he weigh?
Hint: Read the question carefully.
Reveal the answer
Meat
A butcher’s assistant weighs meat all day.
How to solve it (spoilers)
How to think about it
- Notice how the riddle piles up measurements. That is a sign the numbers are a distraction.
- Reread the last line: “What does he weigh?” Not “how much”, but “what”.
- Ask what someone who works at a butcher shop weighs all day long.
- He weighs meat.
Why “Meat” is the answer
The question asks what the assistant weighs, and a butcher’s assistant spends the day putting meat on a scale, so the answer is meat. The height and shoe size are bait for a guess in pounds. The riddle is a study in how one small word, “what” instead of “how much”, changes everything.
Common wrong answers
- About 200 pounds. A reasonable guess for a tall man with big feet, but the riddle asks what he weighs, not how much.
- Himself. He might step on a scale occasionally, but his job is weighing meat.
Related riddles
- I’m tall when I’m young and short when I’m old. What am I?
- What has a head like a cat, feet like a cat and a tail like a cat, but is not a cat?
- The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?
- What goes up but never comes down?
- What belongs to you, but other people use it more than you do?
Want a fresh one every week? Try the riddle of the week.