“And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

“Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle, “nine the next, and so on.”

“What a curious plan!” exclaimed Alice.

“That's the reason they're called lessons,” the Gryphon remarked: “because they lessen from day to day.”

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The first involves using a word with more than one meaning to create humorous wordplay, as in The dentist put his assistants through some drills. A drill is both a tool a dentist uses and a training exercise.The second way is to use similar sounding words with different meanings to make humorous wordplay, as in The clown helped the children across the street. It was a kind jester. Here, jester, a type of clown, is used instead of the similar sounding gesture, meaning an action or a courtesy.","type":"usage-wordpress"}],"ordinal":1,"origin":{"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f48","source":"dcom","text":"First recorded in 1655–65; perhaps special use of pun, variant (now dialectal) of pound ¹, in the sense “to mistreat (words)”","type":"origin"},"partOfSpeechBlocks":[{"definitions":[{"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f35","ordinal":1,"source":"random-house","tags":[{"tag":"Rhetoric","type":"category"}],"text":"the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words."},{"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f39","ordinal":2,"source":"random-house","tags":[{"tag":"Rhetoric","type":"category"}],"text":"the word or phrase used in this way."}],"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f32","ordinal":1,"partOfSpeech":"noun"},{"definitions":[{"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f43","ordinal":1,"source":"random-house","tags":[{"tag":"Rhetoric","type":"category"}],"text":"to make puns."}],"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f3d","inflectedFormSets":[{"inflectedForms":[{"form":"punned","ordinal":1,"syllabicForm":"punned"},{"form":"punning","ordinal":2,"syllabicForm":"pun·ning"}]}],"ordinal":2,"partOfSpeech":"verb-intransitive"}],"pronunciationSets":[{"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f2d","lang":"en","ordinal":1,"pronunciations":[{"audio":{"flac":"P09/P0928300/P0928300.flac","mpeg":"P09/P0928300/P0928300.mp3","ogg":"P09/P0928300/P0928300.ogg","wav":"P09/P0928300/P0928300.wav"},"id":"55680d5100000001c1005f2e","ipa":{"text":"pʌn"},"phonetic":{"html":"puhn","text":"puhn"}}],"region":"us"}],"slug":"pun","source":"dcom","type":"dcom"}],"type":"dcom"},{"entries":[{"createDate":"2010-08-03T17:20:58Z","headword":{"normalizedForm":"pun","standardForm":"pun"},"homograph":1,"id":"4c584ffabece59c1ff218daa","lang":"en","modifyDate":"2010-08-03T17:20:58Z","ngrams":{"allLetters":true,"forward":"pun","groups":["n","p","u"],"numLetters":3,"reverse":"nup","subwordTokens":["pun","un","n"]},"normalizedLetter":"p","ordinal":1,"origin":{"source":"collins","text":"C17: possibly from Italian puntiglio point of detail, wordplay; see _punctilio","type":"etymology"},"partOfSpeechBlocks":[{"definitions":[{"id":"4c4f34a7000000034c005341","ordinal":1,"tags":[{"tag":"Arts:Literature:Literary_and_Literary_Critical_Terms","type":"subject-field"}],"text":"the use of words or phrases to exploit ambiguities and innuendoes in their meaning, usually for humorous effect; a play on words. An example is: \"Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms: But a cannonball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms.\" (Thomas Hood)"}],"ordinal":1,"partOfSpeech":"noun"},{"definitions":[{"id":"4c02155c441711909395a08e","ordinal":1,"tags":[{"tag":"Arts:Literature:Literary_and_Literary_Critical_Terms","type":"subject-field"}],"text":"(intr) to make puns"}],"ordinal":2,"partOfSpeech":"verb"}],"pronunciationSets":[{"ordinal":1,"pronunciations":[{"ipa":{"text":"pʌn"}}]}],"slug":"pun","source":"collins","type":"british"},{"createDate":"2010-10-08T07:10:22Z","derivedFormSets":[{"derivedForms":[{"form":"punner"}],"partOfSpeech":"noun"}],"headword":{"normalizedForm":"pun","standardForm":"pun"},"homograph":2,"id":"4caec3de05535a7620d34726","lang":"en","modifyDate":"2010-10-08T07:10:22Z","ngrams":{"allLetters":true,"forward":"pun","groups":["n","p","u"],"numLetters":3,"reverse":"nup","subwordTokens":["pun","un","n"]},"normalizedLetter":"p","ordinal":1,"origin":{"source":"collins","text":"C16: dialectal variant of _pound ¹","type":"etymology"},"partOfSpeechBlocks":[{"definitions":[{"id":"4c483e69b8b4bf2e210a7e3d","ordinal":1,"tags":[{"tag":"Science_and_Technology:Miscellaneous_Technologies:Building","type":"subject-field"}],"text":"(tr) to pack (earth, rubble, etc) by pounding"}],"ordinal":1,"partOfSpeech":"verb"}],"pronunciationSets":[{"ordinal":1,"pronunciations":[{"ipa":{"text":"pʌn"}}]}],"slug":"pun","source":"collins","type":"british"}],"type":"british"}],"meta":{"arg":"pun","requestId":"wygAVsDOg-ZKPMnUkuH6v","requestStatus":"fulfilled"}},{"type":"fetchSpellSuggestions/fulfilled","payload":{"data":{"lunaWithSlug":[{"displayForm":"pun","slug":"pun"},{"displayForm":"puna","slug":"puna"},{"displayForm":"pung","slug":"pung"},{"displayForm":"punk","slug":"punk"},{"displayForm":"punt","slug":"punt"},{"displayForm":"puny","slug":"puny"},{"displayForm":"spun","slug":"spun"},{"displayForm":"'un","slug":"un"},{"displayForm":"Hun","slug":"hun"},{"displayForm":"Jun","slug":"jun"},{"displayForm":"Kun","slug":"kun"}],"tunaWithSlug":[{"displayForm":"pun","slug":"pun"},{"displayForm":"punk","slug":"punk"},{"displayForm":"puns","slug":"puns"},{"displayForm":"punt","slug":"punt"},{"displayForm":"puny","slug":"puny"},{"displayForm":"spun","slug":"spun"},{"displayForm":"bun","slug":"bun"},{"displayForm":"dun","slug":"dun"},{"displayForm":"fun","slug":"fun"},{"displayForm":"gun","slug":"gun"},{"displayForm":"hun","slug":"hun"}]}},"meta":{"arg":{"word":"pun"},"requestId":"SVOMPf6cfUlh4BhBJhG-8","requestStatus":"fulfilled"}}]},"actionData":null,"errors":null}

pun

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