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Punning   Listen
Punning

noun
1.
A humorous play on words.  Synonyms: paronomasia, pun, wordplay.  "His constant punning irritated her"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Punning" Quotes from Famous Books



... tranquillity, and by the sense of a coming struggle between opponents of whom as yet neither had fully its sympathies. There were mobs, riots, bonfires in the streets, and disturbances which culminated—in a rough spirit of punning upon the name of the minister—in the solemn burning of a jack-boot. The journals, which were now becoming numerous, made themselves organs for this outburst of popular hatred; and it was in the North-Briton that Wilkes took a lead in the movement by ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... windows, a stone balcony and a large courtyard: on the keystone of the arched entrance, on the inner side of the court, is the cap (cappello) which gives its name to the street, and is supposed to be the heraldic badge of the family, armoiries parlantes, or punning devices, being a favorite fashion in old times all over Europe. If the balcony which remains was Juliet's, Romeo must have had a long ladder and a cooler head than he showed under other circumstances. There is a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... and windows with small panes, gave it the air of a Washington's headquarters, which Mr. Stuffer could undoubtedly prove it had been, for his tales were the most convincing arguments that the hostelry had been named by a whimsical fate not too dignified to stoop to punning. There were times when the hungry boarders thought the name facetious, but they conceded it to be quite exact in a descriptive sense, if its brick and mortar were intended to honor monumentally the tales of the host. His first name, August, was not an adjective ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... have heard of one Captain Kidd[19]. I at once looked on the figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say signature because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else—of the body ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... from the Goernergrat without being penetrated with any keen sense of sublimity. And there are mountaineers who are capable of making a pun on the top of Mont Blanc—and capable of nothing more. Still I venture to deny that even punning is incompatible with poetry, or that those who make the pun can have no deeper feeling in their bosoms which they are perhaps too ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... crossing each other at right angles. These the writer well recollects; and Rivaz, an underwriter at Lloyd's, his told him that he remembered when the merchants of London would parade these walks on a summer evening with their wives and daughters. But now, as a punning ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... conscience, but I have a bent Fist for Boxing; Here says he (smartly) you have a brace of quibbles started in a line and a half [Footnote: Collier, p. 170.]—Very true, you have so—But suppose quibbling or punning—but I think this is call'd punning—Is this Gentlemans humour—if so, being a Soldier, I don't see it calls his sense in question at all—but now pray let's see, how our Critick manages a quibble, with a blunder tack'd to the Tail on't, in the page ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet



Words linked to "Punning" :   paronomasia, sport, fun, play



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