[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/discotent_948.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:330:[[Theatre/RichardIII Now is the winter]] of our [[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discontent disco tent.]]]]

->''"Puns are little plays on words that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Creator/BenjaminFranklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water."''
-->-- ''Creator/DaveBarry'', "Why Humor Is Funny"

A pun (also known as a [[{{Literature/Discworld}} pune, or a play on words]]) is a form of word play where a word with more than one meaning is exploited to make a joke or {{Riddle}} based on this {{double meaning}}. This can also take the form of substituting one word for a different, similarly sounding word. Usually done for [[PlayedForLaughs humorous]] effect.

The problem with puns is that they are seen as the lowest form of humor, (although {{poetry}} is [[SelfDemonstratingArticle verse]]), and often [[SelfDemonstratingArticle are not very punny]], at least in English - at best, they're SoBadItsGood. On the other hand, languages such as Chinese or Japanese, where words can be chosen for sound, character, or meaning, allow for puns of incredible complexity, working on multiple levels, and they are often viewed as an art form.

The stigma against puns in the English language is a contemporary attitude. Within historic fiction, esteemed authors pun freely including in situations that modern tastes would regard as most inappropriate. In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens has Ebenezer Scrooge tell the ghost of Jacob Marley "There's more of gravy than of grave about you," and Shakespeare uses a similar pun in Romeo and Juliet where Mercutio is fatally wounded (3.1.94-95) yet plays on the different noun and adjectival meanings of grave with "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Even prim and proper Jane Austen gives Mary Crawford the line, "Certainly, my home at my uncle’s brought me acquainted with a circle of admirals. Of Rears and Vices, I saw enough," in Mansfield Park, leaving later generations of readers wondering whether Crawford is talking about different ranks of admirals or [[https://notchesblog.com/2018/12/13/rears-and-vices-the-austens-and-naval-sodomy/ something else]]. Each of those examples reveals something within the larger context of the work: Scrooge puns when seeing the first ghost because he thinks the apparition is a hallucination caused by a bad meal, Mercutio is upbeat and witty concealing the seriousness of his wounds (alternatively he is panicking at having just been mortally wounded, and he is desperately trying to hide his fear with a joke), and Mary Crawford's speech foreshadows that her wealth and connections have not really made her genteel.

Shakespeare puns so frequently that the original version of the "disco tent" meme illustrating this page ends in a different pun: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York." Richard III was the last of the Yorkist kings during the English Wars of the Roses, so that plays on the homophone sun/son of the house of York.

Puns are challenging to recreate in another language when a work is subtitled, dubbed, or translated. The translator may have to use a different example to get a pun in the new language. In some cases in novels, the translators can't recreate the pun, so they put a footnote.[[note]]The footnote explains how in the non-English original, the author had created a brilliant pun, and it explains what the pun referred to.[[/note]]

For trope names that are puns go to JustForFun/PunnyTropeNames. For tropes that are pun names of other tropes, you want {{Snowclones}}.
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!![[SubTrope Sub-tropes]]:
[[index]]
[floatboxright:
'''Categories:'''
+ JustForFun/PunnyTropeNames
+ {{Snowclones}}
]
* AccentDepundent: A work uses a pun that works better when said in a particular accent.
* AccidentalPun: A person says something that can be construed as a pun without their intention.
* DoubleEntendre: An innocuous phrase that can be reinterpreted for a more taboo or proactive message.
* {{Feghoot}}: An entire story meant to lead up to one joke, usually a pun.
* FlintstoneTheming: Everything has a PunnyName in line with the themes of the media.
* FunWithHomophones: Wordplay utilizing two or more words or of identical pronunciation.
** GoroawaseNumber: Arabic numerals are used in Japanese in place of kanji homophonous with the numbers' pronunciations.
** UranusIsShowing: Homophony of [[ExpospeakGag the name of the planet seventh distal to the Earth's sun and a phrase stating the possession of a digestive tract's terminating point by a second person]].
* HurricaneOfPuns: RapidFireComedy specializing in the delivery of puns.
** PungeonMaster: The summoner of the HurricaneOfPuns.
* LamePunReaction: Reception to a pun is met with indifference or contempt.
* MultipleReferencePun: A pun is given congruent meanings due to numerous reasons.
* OneLetterPun: A pun using words that sounds like a single letter, such as the word "bee" for the letter B or the word "eye" sounding like the letter I.
* PunBasedCreature: Creatures based on literal interpretations of puns and wordplay.
* PunBasedTitle: A pun is incorporated into the title of a work
** EpunymousTitle: A pun about a work's eponymous character(s) is incorporated into the title.
** ParallelPornTitles: A pornographic work has a title spoofing that of a non-pornographic work.
* PunnyHeadlines: Puns incorporated into a news headline.
* PunnyName: A character's name (some or its entirety) is a pun.
** MissXPun: A pun based on an honorific (ex. ''miss'', ''sir'') followed by a name that when said sounds like a word with a homophonous prefix.
* QuipToBlack: A snappy, OneLiner comment just before the commercial break or opening sequence.
* RussianReversal: A rephrased description in which the subject and object of the original clause are reversed. The technical term is a "TranspositionalPun".
* StealthPun: An extremely subtle joke (typically a pun) that is not {{lampshaded|trope}} in the work to any extent.
* SubvertedPunchline: An obvious joke is teased... and something else is substituted.
* TomSwifty: A punny adverb sprung from the line of dialogue it tags.
* VisualPun: A play on words in the form of an image.
* WhatsAHenway: A prank that involves making a PerfectlyCromulentWord and getting someone to say "What's ?", similar to a knock-knock joke.
* WhosOnFirst: Names for things and people are mistaken for common nouns and verbs (and vice versa.)
** {{Duck}}: The exclamation of "Duck!" is confused between the word's usages as a verb and as a noun. Rarely done with other animals/verbs.
** OwlsAskWho: An animal, due to its species' signature vocalization, seems to be asking a question.
* WorldOfPun: A work that is full of puns.
* {{WPUN}}: Pun-based radio station callsigns.
[[/index]]

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!!Examples that don't fit the sub-tropes:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/ABearsNightOut'': If you try to remove your night shirt, you'll get the text: "Why change the habit of a lifetime?", using "habit" both in the sense of "tendency" and its older sense of "attire".
* ''VideoGame/EatMe'': A couple instances of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antanaclasis antanaclasis]]:
** In the intro text, the narrator describes a lack of dinner as a "mean repast by the meanest measure". The first "mean" is meant in the sense of "ungenerous", while the one in "meanest" is meant in the sense of "unkind".
** If the player persists in eating the mound of filth, the narrator comments:
--->Whatever's gotten into you, my dear, I couldn't guess. Now more filth's gotten into you, at any rate, as you swallow what's in your mouth again.
::::The first "gotten into you" is meant figuratively, while the second is meant literally.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* ''WesternAnimation/HazbinHotel'': In "[[Recap/HazbinHotelS1E2RadioKilledTheVideoStar Radio Killed the Video Star]]", Vox sings about Alastor, "Now his medium is getting bloody rare!" This is referring to Alastor's medium of radio becoming "rare" as in "scarce", with "bloody" being used as an intensifier. The sentence also has meat-related meanings which are expressed through a VisualPun of Vox pulling a deer head out of an oven -- "medium" and "rare" as in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doneness doneness]] levels for meat, and "bloody" as in literally bloody, which rare meat looks like.
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