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pun

Pronunciation: /pʌn/

The English word “pun” has 4 meanings listed here.

verb

  1. To beat; strike with force; to ram; to pound, as in a mortar; reduce to powder, to pulverize.
  2. To make or tell a pun; to make a play on words.

noun

  1. A joke or type of wordplay in which similar definitions or sounds of two words or phrases, or different definitions of the same word, are deliberately confused.
  2. A certain number of cowries, generally 80.

Etymology

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.

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