Double Entendre: Definition & Examples

Double entendre can be thought of as a variation of pun, but with a sense of naughtiness typically associated with sexual innuendos. It is often used in popular music, everyday language, and literature. In the case of literature, it is often found in the places that you don’t expect, such as Shakespeare’s plays.

Here is an example from Hamlet, a play that is well-known for its otherwise serious or tragic themes. Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2: 

OPHELIA: You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET: It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Ophelia is “innocently” complimenting Hamlet for his wit and intelligence when she describes him as “keen.” Another interpretation for the word keen would be “sexually aroused.” This is the interpretation that Hamlet runs with. In other words, he’s playing a game of puns. 

He answers, rather naughtily, that “it would cost” Ophelia “a groaning” to take off his keen “edge.”  By “groaning,” Hamlet is referring to sexual intercourse (if that needs to be spelled out for you). 

Double entendre is much more common in popular culture than literature. A good example of this is Henry Hall’s “I Like Bananas”:

Standing by the fruit store on the corner

Once I heard a customer complain

"You never seem to show the fruit we all love so

That's why business hasn't been the same

I don't like your peaches

They are full of stones

I like bananas

Because they have no bones

Don't give me tomatoes

Can't stand ice cream cones

I like bananas

Because they have no bones

No matter where I go

With Susie, May, or Anna

I want the world to know

I must have my banana

The song comes across as sweet and innocent. However, when one takes into account the phallic symbolism of bananas and more than that its common sexual association in the popular imagination.

There are numerous other examples of double entendre in literature and popular culture. In this article, I focus on the difference between double entendre and other types of sexual suggestiveness in literature. In addition, I provide numerous examples from literature and pop culture songs, especially Lord Kitchener's calypso "Lenoir's Well." 

Image of Lord Kitchener, singer of Lenoir's Well, a song laced with double entendres.

What is a double entendre? 

A double entendre is a literary device that involves the use of a word or phrase with at least two meanings, one of which is typically sexual.  It is from the old French for "double understanding." Double entendres typically involve sexual innuendo or risque content, which one may think not appropriate for polite society. 

Sexual innuendo involves sexual suggestiveness coupled with humor. Sexual suggestiveness alone often does not constitute a double entendre. For example, here is an example of sexual suggestiveness with no humor from Andre Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress” (published in 1681): 

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

The sexual undertones in this description are obvious. Marvel describes the act of sex as rolling “all our strength and all/Our sweetness into one ball.” This can be described as a sexually suggestive euphemism. However, it is not a double entendre because no humor is involved in this description. 

On the other hand, here is an example of a double entendre with sexual innuendo and a clear intent at humor from Hamlet: 

HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

OPHELIA: No, my lord.

HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.

The word “lie” as used by Hamlet suggests that he is asking to sleep with Ophelia. This is the interpretation that Ophelia takes when she answers “No, my lord.” However, Hamlet quickly changes his intended meaning to laying “my head upon your lap.”  Here is another example of double entendre from Shakespeare. This time from Venus and Adonis: 

     ‘Fondling,’ she saith, ‘since I have hemm’d thee here

     Within the circuit of this ivory pale,

     I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;

     Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:       

     Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,

     Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

Here Venus is using a metaphor comparing parts of her body to the landscape or in her own words “I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer.” She compares her lips to hills and a specific part of her lower body implicitly to  the valley “where the pleasant fountains lie.” We can use our imagination to figure out that she is referring to oral sex. 

To be honest, the examples given so far are somewhat mild and even tasteful when compared to the true spirit of double entendre. Double entendre is usually far from tasteful. Instead, it is often vulgar, rude, or bawdy. Our examples so far can best be described as risque.  In fact, we can go so far as to say that a double entendre that does not feature risque or vulgar sexual innuendo is not a double entendre at all, but simply a pun.

One of the most notorious examples in literature of double entendre living up to this true spirit of vulgarity is from Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5: 

By my life, this is my lady’s hand! These be her very c’s, her u’s, and her t’s, and thus she makes her great P’s. It is in contempt of question her hand.”

Let’s first establish what’s going on in this scene. Malvolio has come across a forged love letter from Olivia, the lady he works for. The other characters in the play are pulling off a prank on him by having him believe that Lady Olivia is in love with him. 

Now to the content of the letter. The letters highlighted in the passage (i.e. “c,” “u,” and “t”) in combination with the word “and” spell out a vulgar term associated with a woman’s body part, whose potency remains to this day. The letter P also is the beginning letter for another vulgar term for that same body part. 

More examples of double entendre

1. The Manhattan Transfer, My Cat Fell in the Well” (1984)

Our first example is a song by “The Manhattan Transfer,” “My Cat Fell in the Well (released in 1984): 

I woke up this morning with a feeling of despair

I looked for my pussy but my pussy wasn't there

Well, well, well

My cat fell in the well

Oh puss puss puss poor kitty kitty kitty

My cat fell in the well

I got out a ladder and I climbed down to my pet

I saw in a jiffy that my puss was soakin' wet

Well, well, well

My cat fell in the well

Oh puss puss puss poor kitty kitty kitty

My cat fell in the well

The Manhattan Transfers performing "My Cat Fell in A Well."

The song is straightforward and the sexual innuendo is obvious. Therefore, there is no need to elaborate. Suffice to say that the sexual undertones are comparable to the example from Shakespeare’s Twelfth night with Malvolio commenting on his lady’s c’s, u’s and t’s. 

2. Lord Kitchener, “Lenoire’s well”

Well, this is another song about wells. But this time it is by the Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Kitchener. The song is Lenoir’s Well (released in 1964):

I catching hell. Plenty hell

I sign a contract digging Ms. Lenoir's well

I catching hell Plenty hell

I sign a contract digging Ms. Lenoir's well

Lenoir declare she feeling thirsty

"Kitchener, please find some water for me"

I say, "The way I digging, you must get some

If your well have water, it bound to come"

Chorus:

Doo-pah doo, doo-pah dododo

That's the way how I digging

Chica chow chica chow, chica-doo-chow

That's the noise the well making

The song is in the true spirit of double entendre. It is rude, vulgar, and bawdy humor. Moreover, it certainly needs further explanation to understand what the singer is getting at. This form of sexual innuendo and wordplay is a main characteristic of the calypso musical art form. 

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3. William Wycherley, The Country Wife

Our last example of double entendre is from a play written by William Wycherley in 1675 called The Country Wife (Act 1, Scene 1): 

Pinchwife: She’s too awkward, ill-favoured, and silly to bring to town.

Harcourt: Then methinks you should bring her to be taught breeding.

Pinchwife: To be taught! no, sir, I thank you. Good wives and private soldiers should be ignorant⁠—I’ll keep her from your instructions, I warrant you.

Pinchwife has brought his wife to the city, but wishes to protect her from the corrupting influence of Harcourt. When asked about her whereabouts, he lies and says that she is not with him on this trip to town because she is not sufficiently cultured for the city or own life.

Harcourt responds by playing on the meaning of the word breeding. By breeding, he is referring to cultivating the manners and culture of Pinchwife’s significant other, at least on the surface. However, the hidden meaning refers to activity associated with the literal act of breeding. 

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, May 31). Double Entendre: Definition & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/double-entendre-definition-examples