punch line
noun
the climactic phrase or sentence in a joke, speech, advertisement, or humorous story that produces the desired effect.
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Want to pack more punch than a metaphor provides? Consider hypocatastasisMetaphors and similes are figures of speech used to add flair and/or humor to a phrase. These popular rhetorical devices are all well and good, but sometimes you just need to get to the point; enter hypocatastasis. Hypo is derived from the Greek “under,” cata comes from the Ancient Greek kata, meaning “down from, or down to,’ and stasis is Greek for “standing still.” Linguistically, …
RELATED WORDS
Nearby words
- punch biopsy,
- punch bowl,
- punch card,
- punch graft,
- punch in,
- punch list,
- punch out,
- punch press,
- punch spoon,
- punch-and-judy show
Origin of punch line
An Americanism dating back to 1920–25
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for punch line
Watch them make off like punch-line bandits during this “Joke Off” at a mini-SNL reunion last year.
Golden Globes Hosts Tina Fey & Amy Poehler’s Funniest Moments (Video)|Kevin Fallon|January 12, 2014|DAILY BEASTInstead, Kennedy took the punch-line for himself and applied the loud laughs he earned as an inoculation against a poisonous idea.
He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the tension before a punch-line.
The Fourth R|George Oliver Smith
punch line
noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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