Wordplay

Wordplay deliberately exploits language’s meanings, sounds, or forms for humorous, memorable, or rhetorical effect.

Ambiguity: The property of language or other signals that permits multiple interpretations. Multiple possible readings let one expression carry two meanings at once.
Double entendre: An expression with two meanings, one of which is often risqué or suggestive. It sustains a second interpretation beneath an apparently straightforward statement.
Wellerism: A comic saying that quotes a proverb and then undercuts it with a speaker or situation. It turns a familiar expression into a joke by changing its context.
Metaphor: A figure of speech that describes one thing in terms of another to suggest a comparison. Metaphor transfers meaning between ideas without requiring a joke or sound-based ambiguity.
Homophone: A word that sounds like another word but differs in meaning, spelling, or both. Homophones create jokes by making one spoken form suggest separate words.
Spoonerism: A speech error or deliberate joke that exchanges the initial sounds of two words. Swapping initial sounds produces a recognizable phrase with an unexpected meaning.
Paronomasia: A rhetorical figure that uses similar-sounding words to create a pun or effect. This rhetorical technique makes sound resemblance carry an argument or joke.
Irony: A figure of speech or situation in which intended meaning contrasts with literal wording or expectation. Irony hinges on a gap between meaning and expectation, not necessarily on word form.
Polysemy: The association of multiple related meanings with a single word. Related senses of one word can support a phrase’s double meaning.
Portmanteau: A word formed by blending the sounds and meanings of two or more words. Blending words compresses two ideas into one playful form.

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