50 free Umbrellas trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This umbrellas trivia quiz opens up the history of a very ordinary object, from parasols carried over Egyptian gods to storm umbrellas shaped like stealth planes. The easy questions are ones anyone could answer: what the word parasol means, which nanny flies on hers, which Batman villain fights with one, and which singer had a ten-week UK number one named after one. The harder end is for word lovers and history readers: the Latin root of the word, the Akkadian king on the oldest known image, the Greek women who carried parasols as a mark of inferiority, the Paris merchant who sold folding umbrellas in 1710, the Englishman ridiculed for carrying one in London, Samuel Fox's Paragon frame, the Viennese sculpture student who patented a compact folder in 1929, the German brand whose name became the word for it, the Ohio company that patented the working folding umbrella, the papal umbraculum, the Bulgarian dissident killed by a poisoned tip in 1978, and the Dallas bystander who became a conspiracy theory. Cherbourg, Hong Kong, Renoir, cocktail umbrellas and Seattle's Bumbershoot get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the object, its makers and its cultural cameos before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our inventions, everyday objects and weather quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01From which Latin word, meaning shadow, does umbrella derive?
Umbra
Parasol combines parare and sol, sun; parapluie shields from rain and paraneige from snow.
Q 02What does the word parasol literally shield you from?
The sun
A parapluie shields from rain and a paraneige from snow.
Q 03What is the French term for a combined parasol and parapluie?
En-tout-cas
It means in any case.
Q 04Umbrellas were once called gamps in Britain after a character by which author?
Dickens
Mrs Gamp in Martin Chuzzlewit was known for carrying one.
Q 05Brolly is a slang word for umbrella used in Britain, Ireland and which other countries?
Australia and New Zealand
A rarer, fanciful American term for it dates from the late 19th century.
Q 06Which Seattle music and arts festival is named after a slang word for umbrella?
Bumbershoot
It takes place at Seattle Center every Labor Day weekend.
Q 07On whose victory stele, around 2310 BC, does the oldest known umbrella appear?
Sargon of Akkad
Later Assyrian sculptures at Nineveh show umbrellas frequently.
Q 08The earliest Egyptian umbrellas in art date to which dynasty, around 2450 BC?
Fifth
In temple paintings a parasol is held over a god carried in procession.
Q 09What was a parasol called in Classical Greece?
Skiadeion
It was indispensable to a lady of fashion in the late 5th century BC.
Q 10At the Panathenaea, whose daughters carried parasols over Athenian women as a mark of inferiority?
Metics
The service was called sciadephoria.
Q 11Which Chinese city alone had more than a thousand umbrella factories?
Shangyu
Modern production has largely moved to China and other Asian countries.
Q 12An oil-paper umbrella in a traditional Chinese wedding is what colour?
Red
The matron of honour covers the bride with it to ward off evil spirits.
Q 13The Royal Nine-Tiered Umbrella is part of which country's royal regalia?
Thailand
Umbrellas signalled rank across East and Southeast Asia.
Q 14Which pope bestowed a jewelled parasol on Pepin the Short in the 8th century?
Q 21What was the name of the U-section steel umbrella frame developed in Stocksbridge in 1851?
Paragon
Its inventor also founded the town's steelworks in a former cotton mill.
Q 22In what year was London umbrella shop James Smith & Sons founded?
1830
Its New Oxford Street premises is Grade II* listed.
Q 23Which US city was long the country's umbrella capital, with seven makers in 1920?
Baltimore
The Beehler Umbrella Factory of 1828 was the first American umbrella company.
Q 24Whose pocket umbrellas appeared in 1928?
Paul I
It is the earliest known written evidence of the parasol in medieval Europe.
Q 15What is the umbrella of the papal regalia called in Italian?
Ombrellino
In Latin it is the umbraculum, and it appears on the arms of a sede vacante.
Q 16Which Paris merchant introduced Europe's first lightweight folding umbrella in 1710?
Jean Marius
The King granted him a five-year monopoly on folding umbrellas.
Q 17Which town became the umbrella capital of France by the end of the 18th century?
Aurillac
Cheaper Auvergne makers replaced Paris as the industry's centre.
Q 18Which fictional castaway builds his own umbrella covered with skins?
Robinson Crusoe
He copies ones he had seen in Brazil.
Q 19Who is credited as the first man to habitually carry an umbrella in London, braving ridicule?
Jonas Hanway
He founded the Magdalen Hospital and carried one for thirty years before his death in 1786.
Q 20Which industrialist is credited with the steel-ribbed umbrella of 1852?
Samuel Fox
He also founded a steelworks at Stocksbridge in a former cotton mill.
Hans Haupt
The same year, Vienna sculpture student Slawa Horowitz developed a compact folder she patented in 1929.
Q 25Which German company's name became a synonym for small folding umbrellas?
Knirps
The word means little chap or nipper.
Q 26Which Ohio company's owner patented the working folding umbrella in 1969?
Totes
Bradford E. Phillips ran the firm in Loveland, Ohio.
Q 27A Delft student's 2005 storm umbrella, sold as Senz, resembles what?
A stealth aircraft
It withstands wind force 10, up to 100 km/h.
Q 28Which Bulgarian dissident was killed in London in 1978 by ricin from a modified umbrella?
Georgi Markov
He felt a jab in his thigh; a micro-engineered pellet was later found.
Q 29Critics of which British prime minister brandished open umbrellas at him?
Neville Chamberlain
His furled umbrella became a symbol of appeasement.
Q 30The Umbrella Man in the JFK assassination films was later identified as whom?
Louie Steven Witt
He told a 1978 congressional committee he was protesting Joseph Kennedy's support of Chamberlain.