Puns: Definition & Examples

Puns are typically used for their humorous effect and usually involve a play of words that suggest a double meaning. Puns are often thought of as a low or inferior form of humor in everyday speech. A good example of this would be ‘dad jokes,” the type of corny jokes one expects from an embarrassing dad.

Here are a few examples of them: 

• I'm afraid for the calendar. Its days are numbered.

• Singing in the shower is fun until you get soap in your mouth. Then it's a soap opera.

• Dogs can't operate MRI machines. But catscan.

• Why did the employee at the calendar company get fired? He took a day off

All of these jokes rely on the double meanings of words to achieve their humorous effect. Puns are not only used in corny dad jokes. They are also used in literature, with varying effects. Let’s look at an example from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2: 

King: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Hamlet:  Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

In this brief exchange between Hamlet and the king, the king notes that Hamlet is still sad from mourning the death of his father. His sad mood is described by the king as “the clouds still hang on you.” 

Hamlet plays on the words “sun” and “son” to answer that he is still playing the part of the grieving son. The pun works because clouds obstructing the sun alludes to the king’s previous observation of clouds hanging on hamlet, as is often the case with the sun. 

There is always a risk of overdoing puns or puns not landing well. In addition, there is a variety  of pun known as double entendre, where the double meaning usually refers to sexual innuendo and sexual lewdness. 

In this article, I discuss the various types of puns and provide several examples, including examples from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. 

Hamlet and Ophelia by Agnes Pringle.

What is a pun? 

A pun is a literary device that suggests two or more meanings for a word, typically for humorous effect. It is also known as paronomasia. Puns are usually employed for a number of reasons. 

However, the main effect of puns is to make a text more interesting or even fun by relying on a play of words. It is also used  for humor, especially in relation to sexual innuendo. 

Let’s take a look at an example from Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 1: 

Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

This line is from Mercutio, who has just been fatally stabbed. He is in the process of dying and makes a macabre joke about it by playing on the word “grave,” which could mean either the cemetery or being solemn. 

Types of puns

Puns can be roughly divided into four types: 

1. Homographic puns

2. Homonymic puns

3. Homophonic puns

4. Compound puns

Let’s look at the meanings of each. 

1. Homographic puns. These are puns based on something called homographs — words that have identical spellings but different meanings and pronunciations. 

For example, the word “bass” can mean either fish or a musical instrument. In each case, the word is pronounced differently. 

2. Homonymic puns. Homonymic puns rely on homonyms. These are words that are identical in both spelling and sound. Examples of homonymic words include content (satisfied or various media), object (thing or argue), and subject (thing or to force someone to undergo a process or experience). 

3. Homophonic puns. Homophonic puns work by relying on homophones, that is, words that sound the same but that have different meanings and usually different spellings as well. Examples of homophonic words include die and dye, grown and grown, and bare and bear. 

4. Compound puns. Compound puns feature wordplay that uses multiple puns. These puns can be either homographic, homonymic, or homophonic.

Examples of puns

Our first example of a pun comes from the seventeenth-century British poet John Donne, in his poem “A Hymn to God the Father” (published in 1633).

1. Donne, “A Hymn to God the Father”: 

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun

My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;

But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son

Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;

And having done that, Thou hast done;

I fear no more.

‘

The poet is saying a prayer to God, in which he requests salvation from his sins and from death through his son Jesus Christ. He is relying on the homophonic pun of son and sun. When he says “Thy Son/Shall shine,” he means to say that the Grace of Jesus will save him from death. 

The implication is that even after death, he will be resurrected to live again, with sunlight representing both ordinary life on earth and this life after death through the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

2. Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4: 

                                Unhand me, gentlemen.

 By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!

In this quote from Shakespeare, Hamlet has seen the ghost of his father. It has driven him almost mad. His friends, fearing for his safety, try to hold him back from following the ghost. However, he warns them that he is willing to kill them if they don’t unhand him. 

Here, he is playing on the word ghost, which in the context of the scene would be the spirit of his dead father and a euphemism for his threat to kill his own friends. 

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3. Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2

This is another quote from Hamlet. However, this time it is somewhat more lighthearted than our previous example.

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

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

Ophelia is complimenting Hamlet for his wit by describing him as “keen.” The word keen is interpreted by Hamlet as “sexual arousal.” He naughtily responds that “it would cost” Ophelia “a groaning” to take off his keen “edge.”  By “groaning,” if it needs to be spelled out for you, Hamlet is referring to the sexual act. This type of humorous pun that involves sexual innuendo is typically referred to as a “double entendre.”

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, May 30). Puns: Definition & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/puns-definition-examples