punch line

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR punch line ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

the climactic phrase or sentence in a joke, speech, advertisement, or humorous story that produces the desired effect.

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

Related Words for punch line

point

Examples from the Web for punch line

Contemporary Examples of 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
Instead, Kennedy took the punch-line for himself and applied the loud laughs he earned as an inoculation against a poisonous idea.
'Ask Not' Who Wrote JFK's Best Lines
Mark Katz
November 1, 2010

Historical Examples of punch line

He 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

punch line

noun

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