play on words

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

Examples
"A boiled egg for breakfast is hard to beat." The word beat in the sentence can be interpreted as meaning "be better than", giving the sentence the meaning "it is hard for anything to be better than a boiled egg for breakfast", or as meaning "mix rapidly" in which the sentence would mean "it is hard to rapidly mix a boiled egg in preparation for breakfast".

play on words (plural plays on words)

1. (idiomatic) A pun, or similar humorous use of language such as a double entendre.

Translations

pun or similar humorous use of language

• Catalan: joc de paraules (ca) m
• Finnish: sanaleikki (fi)
• French: jeu de mots (fr) m
• Icelandic: orðaleikur m
• Italian: bisticcio di parole m, gioco di parole m
• Latin: dicacitas f
• Polish: gra słów (pl) f
• Russian: игра́ сло́в (ru) f (igrá slóv)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Roman: igra reči f, igra rečima f

• Spanish: juego de palabras (es) m
• Swedish: ordlek (sv) c

See also

• word game
• wordplay