wordplay
Americannoun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of wordplay
Explanation
When you use language in a witty, clever way, you use wordplay. A pun like "the chicken crossing the road was poultry in motion" is an example of wordplay. Wordplay, a word that dates from the mid-1850s, simply means "playing with words." Besides puns, wordplay includes verbal games like double entendres and literary techniques such as meaningful character names — like the werewolf Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter books, whose last name comes from "wolf" in Latin, lupus. Another type of wordplay is a "Tom Swifty," a phrase linking an adverb to a sentence with a pun: "I hate shellfish," she said crabbily.
Vocabulary lists containing wordplay
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Some brain-teasing fun: What’s a three-letter word for a “Mother clucker”? Solve today’s crossword for some witty wordplay.
From Slate ● Jul. 9, 2026
He was also a storyteller who loved wordplay – something that later informed his son's lyrics.
From BBC ● May 27, 2026
Her writing, always full of jokes and wordplay, is inquisitive, improvisatory and a bit maudlin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
It is interesting how this euphemism in particular has gained such widespread use, though of course the practice of wordplay is really anything but new.
From Salon ● May 8, 2026
You’d make it perfectly literal, without any wordplay or comedy that would confuse preschoolers.
From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
But the Empress won’t turn away wordplays that use the same word with different meanings.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 2, 2017
Still running — deadline Monday night, July 6: Our contest for wordplays on foreign terms.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 1, 2015
When in doubt, make tragic wordplays and drench them with alliteration.
From Slate ● Apr. 22, 2013
Turning to the news media, the psychic said the tabloids would run out of obvious wordplays on Cathleen P. Black’s surname.
From New York Times ● Dec. 28, 2010
Among the happiest of his controlled skids is Fred Willard as Buck Laughlin, a supremely confident, supremely clueless TV commentator filling time with proctologist jokes, making awful wordplays when the Shih Tzu appears.
From Time Magazine Archive
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
