Pun

A pun (also known as paronomasia) is a figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious. A pun can rely on the assumed equivalency of multiple similar words (homonymy), of different shades of meaning of one word (polysemy), or of a literal meaning with a metaphor.

Related Topics:
Figure of speech - Word - Phrase - Rhetorical - Homonymy - Polysemy - Metaphor

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Walter Redfern (in Puns, Blackwell, London, 1984) succinctly said: "To pun is to treat homonyms as synonyms".

Related Topics:
Homonym - Synonym

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