pun

1. 1.

   a humorous play on words

   “I do it for the pun of it”

   “his constant punning irritated her”

   Synonymspunningwordplayparonomasia

   Broaderfun

1. 1.

   make a play on words

   “Japanese like to pun--their language is well suited to punning”

   Broaderjoke

Other forms of pun

plural

puns·

past tense or participle

punned

present participle

punning

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about pun

What does pun mean?

pun means "a humorous play on words". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in pun?

pun has 1 syllable: pun. In IPA it is /ˈpʌn/.

What is another word for pun?

Close synonyms include punning, wordplay, paronomasia. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is pun a common word?

pun is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.