Pun
Quick answer: A pun is wordplay that exploits two meanings of a word or two similar-sounding words at once. Learn how puns work in poetry, with examples and tips.
A pun is a piece of wordplay that exploits two meanings of the same word, or two words that sound alike, so that a single phrase carries a double sense. Say the line one way and it means one thing; hear the hidden word inside it and it means something else entirely. Puns range from groan-worthy jokes to some of the most serious effects in English poetry, and the border between the two is thinner than most readers expect.
Poets reach for puns because poetry is already a compressed art, and a pun is compression at its most extreme: two thoughts occupying one word. In an elegy, a pun can let grief and dark humour share a line. In a love poem, it can smuggle in a second, more dangerous meaning under an innocent surface.
How It Works
Puns come in two main flavours. A homographic pun uses one spelling with two senses, as in an original line like: 'The bank refused him, so he slept beside the river's.' The word 'bank' flips from finance to geography mid-thought. A homophonic pun uses two different words that sound the same, as in: 'She mourned all morning, and the morning did not care.' The ear hears the doubling even when the spelling separates the senses.
The mechanics matter: a pun only lands if both meanings are genuinely active in the context. If the second sense has no work to do, the pun feels like decoration. The best puns make the poem's argument twice in one word.
Where You Will See It
Shakespeare is the great punner of English verse. His sonnets play repeatedly on his own first name, Will, letting desire, testament and the man himself crowd into one syllable. John Donne closed 'A Hymn to God the Father' with a pun on 'Donne' and 'done', turning his signature into a confession. Thomas Hood built entire comic poems on chains of puns in the nineteenth century, while modern poets tend to bury their puns deeper, letting a title or a final word quietly double.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Use puns where the doubleness earns its place. A pun in a serious poem should open a trapdoor, not tell a joke: the reader falls through the surface meaning into something darker or truer underneath. Place the pun at a pressure point, often the title, a line break, or the last word, where readers naturally slow down and re-read.
Test each pun aloud on someone who has not seen the poem. If they catch it and wince in the wrong way, cut it or move it. Contest judges, including Writory's, tend to reward wordplay that deepens emotion and dock wordplay that merely shows off.
What poets can take from this
- Make sure both meanings of the pun do real work in the poem, not just one.
- Place puns at points of natural emphasis: titles, line endings, final lines.
- In serious poems, aim for puns that darken or complicate rather than amuse.
- Read punning lines aloud; the ear catches homophones the eye misses.
- Limit yourself to one or two puns per poem so each keeps its charge.
Try it yourself
Choose a word with two unrelated meanings (bank, spring, grave, light) and write a 10-line poem in which the word appears twice, once in each sense, without ever signalling the joke.
Questions
Are puns too silly for serious poetry?
No. Shakespeare, Donne and Emily Dickinson all used puns in poems about death, faith and desire. A pun becomes silly only when its second meaning has nothing serious to add; when both senses carry weight, the effect is depth, not comedy.
What is the difference between a pun and a double entendre?
A pun is any wordplay on two meanings or similar sounds. A double entendre is a specific kind of pun where the second meaning is risqué or suggestive. Every double entendre is a pun, but most puns are not double entendres.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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