The paper is devoted to the study of English riddles based on homonymy. The purpose of the work is to analyze the structural and semantic components of such riddles and to identify their peculiarities. As a result of the research, two structural types of riddles are identified: 1) riddles in which the homonym is found in the question, 2) riddles in which the homonym is found in the key. Solving a riddle is a complex cognitive process. The analysis shows that the process of solving metaphor-based riddles is different from that of solving riddles based on homonymy. Solving a riddle based on homonymy involves comparing different meanings of homonyms, but not decoding the metaphor suggesting a direct name of an object. It can be concluded that riddles based on homonymy are a kind of language game in which different meanings of homonyms are played out, which is a peculiarity of this type of riddles.