Play on Words | Examples & Meaning
A play on words, often referred to as wordplay, is an expression that manipulates the meanings, sounds, spellings, or arrangement of words to achieve humor, irony, or layers of meaning. The term is sometimes used as a synonym for “pun,” but it can encompass various other devices that use language in clever, innovative ways.
Examples of plays on words can be found in media, literature, marketing, and everyday conversations. These wordplay examples include puns, double entendres, portmanteaus, palindromes, malapropisms, oxymorons, and paraprosdokians.
What is a play on words?
A play on words (or wordplay) uses language in a creative or humorous way, typically by exploiting multiple meanings or similar sounds of words. This form of language manipulation is often used to engage and amuse the audience.
While “play on words” is often used synonymously with “pun,” several other devices can be included in the definition.
Wordplay typically involves semantic manipulation, focusing on the meanings of words (e.g., puns, malapropisms). However, wordplay is sometimes defined more broadly to include syntactic manipulation, which involves the arrangement of words in a sentence (e.g., some palindromes).
The primary aim of wordplay is to amuse and engage the audience, but wordplay can also add depth, artistic value, and complexity to a text. In marketing and advertising, well-chosen wordplay can make a message more memorable and persuasive.
Play on words examples
Play on words is an umbrella term that can include many rhetorical devices associated with wit, cleverness, or humor derived from the meanings or order of words, including the examples that follow.
Pun
A pun is a play on words that uses terms that share sounds or spellings but have different meanings. This form of verbal wit often creates humor by highlighting the multiple meanings of a single word.
For example, a pun might involve homophones like “hair” and “hare” or homographs like “tire” (to become weary) and “tire” (the rubber covering for a wheel).
This saying attributed to Benjamin Franklin humorously juxtaposes the phrases “hang together,” implying unity, and “hang separately,” implying execution.
Paraprosdokian
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is unexpected and often humorous, causing the reader to reinterpret the first part. This form of wordplay is commonly used in satire and comedy.
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather, not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.
War does not determine who is right—only who is left.
Double entendre
Double entendres have a straightforward meaning and a secondary, usually suggestive or provocative, meaning. They are typically puns that have a risqué secondary meaning. This type of wordplay is often used to add a layer of subtlety or humor.
And if you want a doctor, I’ll examine every inch of you.
In Leonard Cohen’s song “I’m Your Man,” the phrase “I’ll examine every inch of you” is a double entendre hinting at something more intimate than a physical at a doctor’s office.
Malapropism
A malapropism is the use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with humorous results. This form of language manipulation can create amusing misunderstandings. When intentional, a malapropism can be considered a play on words.
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck often misunderstands words used by the adults around him. In narrating a conversation between Aunt Sally and Sid Sawyer, he means to say “petrified” (meaning afraid) but instead says “putrefied” (meaning decomposed and foul-smelling). This malapropism humorously highlights Huck’s naivety.
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines contradictory terms, creating a paradoxical effect that can be used to add humor or complexity to language. This type of wordplay often goes unnoticed as oxymoronic expressions such as “jumbo shrimp” and “deafening silence” enter the common vernacular.
controlled chaos
living dead
open secret
Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, phrase, sentence, or number that contains exactly the same sequence of characters or words whether read from left to right or from right to left.
Palindromes that use words as a unit rather than characters (e.g., “King, are you glad you are king?”) can fit the broad definition of a play on words. This form of wordplay often surprises and amuses readers.
Portmanteau
A portmanteau blends parts of two or more words to create a new term with a combined meaning. This form of wordplay often results in creative and humorous new words.
dramageddon [drama + Armageddon]
Bennifer [Ben Affleck + Jennifer Lopez]
mansplaining [man + explaining]
mockumentary [mock + documentary]
Sharknado [shark + tornado]
Frequently asked questions about play on words
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Shabo, M. (2025, January 30). Play on Words | Examples & Meaning. Scribbr. Retrieved April 14, 2025, from https://www.scribbr.com/rhetoric/play-on-words/
