Super Glossary

Pun

Entertainment / Literature / Pun: A play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning. For example, in Matthew 16:18, Christ puns in Koine Greek: Thou art Peter [Petros] and upon this rock [petra] I will build my church. Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet, puns upon Romeo's vile death (vile=vial, the vial of poison Romeo consumed). Shakespeare's poetic speaker also puns upon his first name (Will) and his lover's desire (her will) in the sonnets, and John Donne puns upon his last name in 'Hymn to God the Father.' Originally, puns were a common literary trope in serious literature, but after the eighteenth century, puns have been primarily considered a low form of humor. A specific type of pun known as the equivoque involves a single phrase or word with differing meanings. For instance, one epitaph for a bank teller reads 'He checked his cash, cashed in his checks, / And left his window. / Who's next?' The nineteenth-century poet, Anita Owen, uses a pun to side-splitting effect in her verse: O dreamy eyes, They tell sweet lies of Paradise, And in those eyes the lovelight lies And lies--and lies--and lies!(also called paranomasia)
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