punch line
the climactic phrase or sentence in a joke, speech, advertisement, or humorous story that produces the desired effect.
Origin of punch line
1Words Nearby punch line
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use punch line in a sentence
Readers eagerly ate up her candid revelations, no names withheld, about what she experienced on the other side of the coverage that perpetually made punch lines out of her persona, her love life and her body.
Edith Piaf mournfully lists her mistakes, allowing Front a rare punch-line: “So… you do have some regrets.”
He was a self-made man, and a self-destroyed man—so he wrote his own punch line.
Harry Shearer on Being Nixon, ‘The Simpsons Movie’ Sequel, and Why Obama Should Return His Nobel | Marlow Stern | October 21, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTPalin views herself as a “punch of reality” as opposed to a punch line.
The last few years have regrettably made the phrase “Republican pollster” less a job title than a punch line.
The Cantor Prediction Is Part of a Pattern: GOP Pollsters Stink | Kristen Soltis Anderson | June 17, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
Reelecting Gray knowing he could be indicted would once again make the District a punch line for the late-night talk shows.
Phil said, "Because people are—" And then he caught himself and waved his hand and muttered, "I forgot the punch line."
The First One | Herbert D. KastleHe began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the tension before a punch-line.
The Fourth R | George Oliver Smith
British Dictionary definitions for punch line
the culminating part of a joke, funny story, etc, that gives it its humorous or dramatic point
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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