Words · Less common
punning
7 letters · 5 distinct letters
- noun
a humorous play on words
I do it for the pun of it
Word history
History of pun
From Middle English ponnen, ponen, punen, from Old English punian, pūnian (“to pound, beat, bray, bruise, crush, grind”), from Proto Germanic *punōną (“to break to pieces, pulverize”). See pound. As a kind of word play, from the notion of “beating” the words into place.
From Wiktionary, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0
Why this word counts
- Where it comes from
- Listed in the English Speller Database at size 35: the core list of everyday words.
- How common it is
- Used about once in every 10 million words.
- In the spelling bee
- Daily answer A standard word with a definition we can show, so it can be a daily answer.