Word.ws English Dictionary

paronomasias

paronomasias is the plural of paronomasia.

Meaning of paronomasia

Noun

paronomasia (countable and uncountable, plural paronomasias)

  1. (rhetoric) A pun or play on words.
    • Oh, by the way, any attempt to present me with any kind of testimonial will result in stern measures.
      And when I say stern measures, I am indulging in a paronomasia, or play on words! Good night.1936 Ian Hay: Housemaster. London Hodder & Stoughton p. 234
  2. (rhetoric) The use of puns.
    • Paronomasia to the sense alludes,
      When words but little varied it includes.1835, L[arret] Langley, “[Rhetorical Turns.] Paronomasia.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 88

Questions about paronomasias

What is paronomasias the plural of?
Paronomasias is the plural of paronomasia.

Words near paronomasias in the dictionary

  1. paronomasia
  2. paronomasiac
  3. paronomasiacs
  4. paronomasial
  5. paronomasian
  6. paronomasias
  7. paronomasiast
  8. paronomasiastic
  9. paronomasiasts
  10. paronomasic
  11. paronomasies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: paronomasias (page history and authors); paronomasia (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “paronomasias.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/paronomasias. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.